Day 3: The day I considered acting on the advice of Michael Foot in order to not turn into a toad

I have encountered a problem in writing this blog. It's not, for once, writer's block. It has nothing to do with deadlines or lack of motivation. This problem has maoral implications the like of which I have never had to think about before. The problem is this: 'How do I read the Daily Mail?' I don't mean 'How do I read the Daily Mail without losing my faith in Great Britain, the media and humanity?' I arguably lost that faith a long time ago. The question I have to consider is: 'What, physically, do I have to do to read this newspaper?'

There are two obvious possibilities: I can read it online or I could buy it from a newsagent. Clearly, the second option is not one I wish to take: that would mean giving my hard-earned cash to the hideous squad of toad-people responsible for the output of Associated Newspapers Ltd. But reading online is hardly ideal either. Every time I visit the Daily Mail website help to justify its continued existence, and this makes me feel dirty, slimy. Toad-like.

I don't have a solution as yet. Today I skimmed through the paper in a busy shop, and people like me picked up their Independents and looked at me like I was roadkill. As result I only managed to read a couple of headlines and a few paragraphs before shuffling off to weep in Costa. In future I may have to conceal the Mail inside a more respectable publication: Cute Asian Teens Monthly or Top Gear Magazine or the Guardian.

The only other option is plain old theft. If I could roll up a copy and get it out of there without anoyone seeing so that I could read it in a quiet corner before disposing of it, preferably in an industrial incinerator, I would feel much better about myself. Yes, crime might just pay in this case. As Michael Foot once said, 'Most liberties have been won by people who broke the law.'

I mention Foot because his name appeared in the Daily Mail today. Apparently, the current opposition's performance in the local government elections compares unfavourably with that of Labour during Foot's tenure in the early days of Thatcher's spell at the helm of the country. While the figures tell one story (37% of the vote for Ed Miliband's Labour, 41% for Foot's) the political climate is slightly different. Today, for example, we have what have become known as 'stealth' cuts as opposed to Thatcher's 'fuck everything up with a machete' cuts, while government think tanks realise that polarising political thought too much is dangerous for a leading party's future aspirations. But the main difference is the media. Sadly, the Daily Mail wields more political power than any other British newspaper. Holding the AV referendum on the same day as local elections was of mutual help to the Conservatives and the 'No' campaigners. The Mail urged people to vote 'No', those people saw the simple correlation between a 'No' vote and a Tory vote (invented in part by the right-wing media), and Bob's yer uncle.

I was never much of a fan of Michael Foot (just as I will never be a supporter of Ed Miliband) but when he spoke of breking the law to gain liberties, I'd like to think he meant that we should all go out and steal copies of the Daily Mail. Not so we can all write futile blogs but so that the paper doesn't fall into the hands of the impressionable, reactionary and politically naive centre-right readership whose blind voting completes the circle of stagnant goverment and overly-powerful media.