"The folk musicians and singers that I grew up listening to, were home grown and far from "left wing""
The people who stated the present revival were left wing and the brought a social consciousness to the music - as did, in a different way, the people who took the music and used it to make something else incuding the'beautiful people' in the swinging sixties.
You can certainly enjoy folk songs without acknowledging its social significance if that's your choice, but it's only eating a part of the apple, as far as I'm concerned - and having a social interest in folksong as having "quasi·Marxian agendas" is indicative of an agenda, in my experience.
"Long before folk music was adopted by the political left."
It was never "adopted" by the political left - it was brought to the public's attention by cultural let wing groups such as The Workers Music Association, and later by MacColl and Lloyd, whose love of the music for itself has always been unquestionable.
"It does reflect the opinion of its readers, and its circulation is second only to The Sun."
There isn't a shred of evidence that this is the case - neither of them can claim a political following, nor ever have.
The third in line is 'The Mirror' then The Evening Standard.
The bottom of the pile if 'The Independent', which probably reflects the general view of the British people more than any of them.
It's interesting to look down the lists of readership period in the long term.
Between 1950 and 1999, the Mirror was second popular paper in Britain, behind the Sun most recently, before that, behind the Daily Ezpress.
As the Mirror's politics swung to the right, its readership declined.
The Mail has always been right wing (at on time, its owner, Lord Rothermere, was an open supporter of the Nazi regime)
One of the facts of British interest in the media, people no longer rely on the press for information - if they want that, they go to the broadsheets, or those who still eschew broadsheet standards - rapidly diminishing in the hands of Rupe the Drongo and his ilk.
Jim Carroll