As the Daily Mail's news values have moved up the news agenda this week, it's been fun watching the #MiddleEarthDailyMail hashtag on Twitter. Users have been pondering the effect of Sauron's immigration policies on Shire house prices, or imagining diet tips from Lady Galadriel – "Exclusive pics … inside". But I can't shake the feeling that Tolkien's version of good versus evil has something of the Daily Mail about it. Isn't Tolkien's demonisation of the Orkish peoples and their political leader Sauron just as bad as the Mail telling us that asylum seekers, single mothers and socialists are the cause of all evil? Aren't the Hobbits and the Shire really just idealised version of Little Englanders in the home counties?
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