Cecil King

PEOPLE | 1901-1987

King, Cecil Harmsworth

Cecil Harmsworth King was a dominant figure in 20th-century British media, serving as the chairman of the International Publishing Corporation (IPC). The IPC, the world's largest newspaper business in 1968, controlled 40% of Britain's newspapers and publications, including the Daily Mirror and over 200 other newspapers and magazines.

He was the nephew of Lord Northcliffe, a co-founder of both the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror, and was connected to the powerful Harmsworth family. King’s life was characterised by immense wealth, success, and influence.

King's journalistic philosophy was rooted in a patrician paternalism, a belief that newspapers could not only reflect public opinion but also actively lead it, thereby educating and transforming readers to foster a better society.

This approach was established by Sylvester Bolan, editor of the Daily Mirror in 1948, who pioneered "public service sensationalism". This method sought to present news vividly and dramatically, using "big headlines, vigorous writing, simplification into familiar everyday language and the wide use of illustration by cartoon and photograph," to engage a mass readership and encourage democratic participation.

This ensured important news and views had a forceful impact on the reader's mind, particularly concerning the common person. King believed that the Daily Mirror's criticism of Winston Churchill's government had caused its post-war collapse. He also maintained connections with MI6 and the CIA, and was involved in the operation of 'Encounter', a magazine described as a left-wing propaganda outlet supported by the CIA.

King's relationship with Hugh Cudlipp, the editor of the Daily Mirror, was initially a close partnership. With King's backing, Cudlipp reshaped the Daily Mirror into a publication that resonated with the public's aspirations and anxieties.

Their collaboration reached its peak when they leveraged the Daily Mirror's considerable power to help Harold Wilson and the Labour Party secure victory in the 1964 general election. Although never a Labour Party member or socialist, King was staunchly anti-Conservative, believing they neglected the common person, a cause he felt his paper should champion. He believed the Daily Mirror had decisively influenced the 1964 election, stating, "we won the election for them in 1964".

However, King's attitude shifted as he grew disillusioned with Wilson's government, particularly regarding its handling of economic issues. His personal ambition escalated into megalomania, fuelled by a conviction that he was a man of destiny who should guide government decision-making. His wife, Ruth, who believed she was a psychic, reinforced King's conviction that he possessed superior powers and could even make himself invisible.

Wilson attempted to placate King by appointing him a director of the Bank of England in March 1965. This proved to be a critical miscalculation, as it brought King into contact with Lord Cromer, the deeply conservative Governor of the Bank of England and a staunch adversary of Wilson.

Cromer was convinced that Labour's economic policies would lead to national disaster and began to talk of forming an emergency coalition government to replace Wilson's administration. This gave King a political focus for his disappointment. King believed a coming apocalyptic social and economic crash was imminent.

Fueled by this conviction, King intensified the Daily Mirror's attacks on the Labour government to a "ferocious level". He began to breach the unwritten journalistic rule against overtly reporting on politicians' private lives, notably attacking Foreign Secretary George Brown for his alcoholism.

In May 1968, King took decisive action, inviting Lord Mountbatten to dinner and proposing he lead a new emergency government of businessmen and King himself. Mountbatten’s chief scientific adviser, Solly Zuckerman, dismissed this plot as "ranked treachery".

Undeterred, King assumed direct control of the Daily Mirror's front page the following day, publishing an article demanding Wilson's resignation and accusing the government of faking the true size of the national deficit.

Simultaneously, he publicly resigned from the Bank of England's board, triggering chaos in the City of London and another run on the pound. King's fury was partly a result of Wilson's refusal to grant him an earlship, an honour King desired to outrank the Northcliffes; Wilson declined this request, stating that hereditary honours were against Labour Party policy.

King's increasingly erratic behaviour and overreach of power ultimately led to his downfall. Hugh Cudlipp, recognising that King's actions were destroying the Daily Mirror, courageously orchestrated his dismissal. King was dismissed by the company secretary on 30 May 1968, following a unanimous decision by the IPC board. Cudlipp succeeded him as chairman of IPC.

King's removal marked a significant shift in the British newspaper industry. His patrician vision of educating the masses was superseded by a new journalistic "frame". From the "ruins" emerged Rupert Murdoch who offered a different approach: attacking the British elites and serving the public by giving them "what they wanted".

Murdoch's takeover of The Sun and subsequent doubling of its circulation exemplified this new, more populist and sensationalist era of journalism, often characterised by "sex and violence" content.