In professional boxing, the fight is usually stopped when one fighter is already too bloodied to carry on. In chess, a player gracefully yields when he sees the inevitable “checkmate” coming. In politics, even the fiercest gladiators usually know when they are beaten. This was true of Lords Rothermere and Beaverbrook of Fleet Street when they fought British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.

In 1931, the two press barons used their newspapers to try to weaken Baldwin. The latter responded through a spirited address in which he accused the press lords of wanting to exercise “power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.” He borrowed the quote from his cousin, the famous English writer Rudyard Kipling.

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