Tagged with The Sun

Who are you calling a braindead Trot?

Press-FreedomRecent weeks have seen Jeremy Corbyn ridiculed as ‘the political equivalent of a child’s invisible friend’, ‘ugly, dispiriting, and out of touch’, ‘the bearded Messiah’, ‘dangerous’, ‘puerile’, ‘completely unfit for any kind of senior political office’, ‘a malevolent clown’, ‘an extremist who has spent a political career embracing nasty causes’, ‘a gormless Marxist’, and ‘a tinpot meddler’ prone to ‘engrained political pathologies’.

Those with the temerity to back him have been branded ‘Trumpton revolutionaries’,’pig ignorant lefty click activists’, ‘psychotically furious about everything’, ‘terribly well-orffff, doncha know’, ‘infantile and possibly mentally impaired’, ‘petulant children’ and ‘gibbering perpetual adolescents’. Continue reading →

The Royals and the Nazis

Sun_Sieg_Heil_front_pageWho wasn’t tickled by this front page? Well, The Palace, obviously. They said it’s “disappointing that film, shot eight decades ago… has been obtained and exploited“. Disappointing? How so? It’s not like anyone seriously believes the Queen has an attic full of Nazi regalia and goes to bed with a signed copy of Mein Kampf. And no one is suggesting that she is somehow culpable for what the Queen Mother and the execrable Edward VIII encouraged her to do. Those for whom sycophancy is the only appropriate mode for treating with and speaking about the royals should neck a bottle of chill pills. Relax, Elizabeth Windsor today remains the same patrician Tory who places herself above big P politics as she was upon her assumption of the throne. Continue reading →

The moral vacuity of Katie Hopkins

Katie HopkinsFour years ago, I wrote about the functions of bigotry in the mass media, and the ever charming Melanie Phillips was my case study. Then, somewhat counter-intuitively, The Daily Mail made use of Mel to get the lefties in and boost their clicks per second average. Every idiocy that tripped off her keyboard was then, in the infant days of social media, pounced upon and shared by the angry, which in turn help push those page views through the roof. This now is 2015, things are more settled now. Our audiences are sophisticated and savvy. The media bigots have had their day, or have they? Continue reading →

No more Page 3… but don’t be fooled

No more page 3 T-shirtAt long last Page 3, The Sun’s long-running big-breasted totem is to be shelved … and replaced with scantily clad young women covering up that little bit more. A victory? I suppose it is one, of sorts. It’s clearly a pay off for the No More Page 3 campaign. I wonder if the rest of the left will emulate its example and realise that taking a hectoring, berating tone is not always the best way of going about things? However, when Uncle Rupert said Page 3 was old-fashioned, the writing was on the wall.

There are a couple of things about this that need noting. First of all, the dirty digger was right. The number of people who still buy The Sun to ogle some boobs must surely by now be a vanishingly tiny minority. The ubiquity of porn and its ready availability absolutely everywhere, provided you have the appropriate technology, rendered that selling point obsolete well over 10 years ago. What purpose did it serve between then and now from a commercial point of view, apart from content filler? Nothing, though it hasn’t stopped some idiots from trying to get a Je suis Page 3 meme going. Continue reading →

Russell Brand v the Sun: long may the war continue

When I was poor and I complained about inequality, people said I was bitter. Now I’m rich and I complain about inequality, they say I’m a hypocrite. I’m beginning to think they just don’t want inequality on the agenda because it is a real problem that needs to be addressed.”

Normally something to pin on your tumblr, this week it’s become something of a prophecy. Russell Brand was ambushed on Channel 4 news (two million views and rising) for having the temerity to stand with New Era Estate residents against the sale of their homes to American-based property sepculators. Scenting an opportunity to shift a few papers, The Sun joined C4 with front page attacks on Brand on Wednesday and Thursday. And so it came to pass that the Dirty Digger’s tabloid terriers went to war with Russell Brand.

I pity the fools. Continue reading →