I've been reading Piers Morgans books over the past couple of weeks. Now not being a Daily Mirror reader I wasn't really aware of what they were publishing during the lead-up to and during the initial stages of Iraq war. As a bit of background to those of you that also don't know, the Daily Mirror is a traditional supporter of the Labour Party and it was unusual to see their harsh criticism of Blair and Bush. Some of these front pages were funny, some hard-hitting, and some got very personal with both Bush and Blair. - They make for interesting reading though and were are focal point for the anti-war feeling in the country as events progressed.
You could never, ever, ever criticize the PM of the UK, let alone the President like that here. It's sad, but most people are either oblivious to what is going on in the world around them, or have an unhealthy obsession with worshiping the state. Somewhere along the line, we forgot that the government works for us, not the other way around.
It was interesting to read what happened to the newspapers circulation figures. During the build-up to the war the critical stance resulted in improved figures, although when the troops actually went in they fell as people got behind the troops. After a short while and it became clear to most that there was no evidence of WMDs they started to rise again as people felt duped. Interestingly enough the largest pressure put on newspaper to change their editorial stance came from it's American investors, Piers Morgan manged to maintain a 'fairly' good relationship with Tony Blair and most of the Labour government. He maintained that his paper continued to support the governemnt but wanted to act as their conscience.