LONDON -- When its press becomes the story, a country is in a strange shape.
Britain has plenty of causes for concern -- from the state of its health, education and transport services to the major question of whether it should join the European common currency. But the obsessive question of the moment in London is the relationship between the New Labour government and the newspapers.
Hardly a day passes without a minister hitting out at press coverage, or a newspaper finding fresh cause for complaint about the administration, sometimes on the thinnest of factual evidence.