Story of the British Daily Worker / Morning Star newspaper

"Founded on Ja­nuary 1, 1930, it is still the only En­glish-​lan­guage so­ci­a­list daily news­paper pu­blished in the world. In ad­di­tion to that claim to fame, it is also the only news­paper in Bri­tain owned by its re­a­ders. Ori­gi­nally pu­blished as the Daily Worker, the paper was laun­ched as the organ of the Com­mu­nist Party of Great Bri­tain. Over the next 15 years it fought its way into the cons­ci­ous­ness of trade uni­o­nists and pro­gres­sives th­roughout the land, always figh­ting for the cause of wor­king pe­ople and bat­tling against an Es­ta­blish­ment which moved he­aven and earth to ex­tin­guish it It sur­vived crip­pling court cases and the im­pri­son­ment of staff, ha­ras­s­ment and even cen­sorship by the po­lice.
It sur­vived a 12-​year boy­cott (1930-​1942) by who­le­sa­lers, du­ring which the paper's re­a­ders de­li­vered the paper to new­sa­gents. It ou­tlived an 18-​month ban (1940-​41) by a vin­dic­tive Home Se­cre­tary, Her­bert Mor­rison, which was only called off after a grass-​roots pro­test mo­ve­ment in­vol­ving mil­lions of pe­ople. And it rose above the bom­bing of its of­fices in 1941, which des­troyed both the buil­ding and the new presses which had been bought with cash raised by re­a­ders' col­lec­tions. At the end of the se­cond world war in 1945, the Com­mu­nist Party of Great Bri­tain re­a­lised that the paper had a far wider im­por­tance than simply being the journal of the party and, in the Sep­tember of that year, the Pe­ople's Press Prin­ting So­ciety was es­ta­blished as an in­de­pen­dent co-​ope­ra­tive to pu­blish the paper. Shares were sold at £1 each and, up and down the country, tens of thou­sands of trade uni­o­nists, La­bour and Com­mu­nist party mem­bers, trades coun­cils and union bran­ches and re­gions bought into the paper.
Those sha­rehol­ders re­a­lised that, for the wor­king class, there was little that was more im­por­tant than to have a daily voice against the forces of im­pe­ri­a­lism, ca­pi­ta­lism, op­pres­sion and ex­ploi­ta­tion, a voice to coun­te­ract the diet of lies and dis­tor­tions fed to the pu­blic by ca­pi­ta­lism?s toady press. In 1966 the ho­nou­rable name of the Daily Worker was re­placed and the paper re­laun­ched as the Mor­ning Star -​ a change of name that was hotly de­bated th­roughout the trade union and la­bour mo­ve­ment. But, change of name or no, the paper con­ti­nued the fight against op­pres­sion that had been the hall­mark of the Daily Worker and car­ried on ear­ning the res­pect of all whose causes it es­poused, so­me­times as the sup­porter of great mass mo­ve­ments and so­me­times ploughing a lo­nely furrow as the single voice of pro­gress in a Fleet Street which, at times, ri­chly de­served the title Street of Shame. In 1984, the paper moved from its bro­adsheet format to be­come a ta­bloid, ta­king on an ap­pe­a­rance which, with some mo­di­fi­ca­tions, is still re­cog­ni­sable today.
The ta­bloid Mor­ning Star, however, faced many of the same hos­ti­li­ties and at­tacks as its pre­de­ces­sors -​ and some which could never have been en­vi­saged in ear­lier days."

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