The Song Remains the Same
The Sun has decided that 12 years is long enough to support Labour, and has come out in favour of David Cameron's Conservatives, as this picture shows:
Most of us will still be able to remember the headline below, a mere 6 weeks prior to the 1997 election, when The Sun decided they'd had enough of the Tories, and supported Tony Blair's Labour party - who then went on to win a landslide election after 18 years of Tory rule.
Prior to 1997, the party had been a staunch supporter of the Tories. This was no clearer than in 1992, with this headline (and no, I'm not old enough to remember seeing it):
John Major went on to win a narrow victory, and The Sun claimed it had been the protagonist, with the headline "It's the Sun wot won it."
From the early 1990s on, The Scottish Sun lent support to the SNP while other versions continued to support The Tories. But then, after switching allegiance to Labour in 1997, on the day of the 2007 Scottish Parliamentary election, The Scottish Sun printed this cover:
Which begs the question: does anyone at The Sun actually have any entrenched political views? Or are they, as their headlines suggest, all over the shop?
Obviously The Sun is in the business of selling newspapers. They're not selling as many as they used to, granted, but it is still a business. The mood of the country has apparently shifted towards the Tories (according to most opinion polls) and so they've decided to tap into that mood by switching to the Tories (again).
In Scotland (arguably) opinion is still divided between a (relatively) popular SNP Government (a piece on that to come soon) and loyalty to the Labour party. This will make The Scottish Sun's decision over who to support interesting (and Will has a good take on it here).
On thing is for sure though - you can count on The Sun for a sensationalist headline. My money is on Super Tories Go Ballistic, Labour Are Atrocious.
In Scotland (arguably) opinion is still divided between a (relatively) popular SNP Government (a piece on that to come soon) and loyalty to the Labour party. This will make The Scottish Sun's decision over who to support interesting (and Will has a good take on it here).
On thing is for sure though - you can count on The Sun for a sensationalist headline. My money is on Super Tories Go Ballistic, Labour Are Atrocious.
2 comments:
With your closing headline are you angling for a career at the Sun, Malc ;0)
But if the, ahem, SS supported the SNP in the past then I can't really see why they shouldn't now, but there's certainly no indication that they might do so in the future.
However, I was interested to read about the SS's "convoluted logic" when it changed from SNP to Labour, so I suppose anything's possible, but I wonder precisely what that convoluted logic was?
From Wikipedia:
"In the early 1990s, the Scottish edition became notable as the first major newspaper to declare support for the pro-independence Scottish National Party. At the time the paper elsewhere continued to support the Conservatives, who were then becoming an increasingly marginalised force in Scotland. This stance, however, became somewhat problematic following The Sun's adoption of support for Labour elsewhere in the UK, given that the SNP were seen as Labour's main challengers and fiercest rivals in Scotland. The Scottish edition was forced to employ some convoluted logic to justify its eventual withdrawal of support for the SNP in favour of pro-union Labour."
were did you get that noose picture, ive been looking for one for ages?
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