Prefer Miliband to Cameron on economics? The Sun says you need a psychiatrist

Series supported by
Media Integrity

The real 'insult to voters' intelligence' is committed every day by the Sun

 

The party bias of the Sun newspaper in this election has today moved from attacking Ed Miliband to attacking voters who might like his policies.

Its leader column today starts like this:

“Labour’s sham manifesto is an insult to voters’ intelligence.

“We shouldn’t be surprised. For years they have treated the public as fools.

“Yesterday Ed Miliband took this contempt to a new level.”

It goes on like that, running with the Tory line that Labour’s pledge to cut the deficit on the current budget every year should not be believed. But the remarkable twist comes in the conclusion, as the Sun likens Labour to “an incurable drunk claiming to be teetotal while slurring his words through a job interview to manage the off-licence”:

“We can’t currently think of any reason to vote Labour on May 7.

“But if your motivation is that Miliband will run the economy more sensibly than David Cameron, you should Google psychiatrists in your area as soon as possible.“

This studied insult to a big chunk of the electorate, (as well as to anyone with psychiatric problems), is of a piece with the Sun’s political coverage today.

In a two-page spread, themed around the cartoon The Simpsons, (on loan from Sun-owner Rupert Murdoch’s Fox TV), the paper equates opposition to George Osborne’s mad push to clear the entire deficit – for both day-to-day and capital spending – and run a surplus by 2020, with being the class dunce.

The spread also ‘rates’ some of Labour’s policies – while leaving out others, like the rail-price freeze and expansion of childcare services – presenting them in a polemical form that effectively tells readers what to think.

I’m always amused when I see the leader columns in the Sun’s stable-mate paper the Times headed as ‘leading articles’, since it calls to mind ‘leading questions’ in court, and well suits columns like this one that seek to drag their readers to a certain opinion like cattle.

The real ‘insult to voters’ intelligence’ is committed every day by the Sun newspaper.

Adam Barnett is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow MediaWatch on Twitter

No related posts.

22 Responses to “Prefer Miliband to Cameron on economics? The Sun says you need a psychiatrist”

  1. Kevin Barry

    The forthcoming general election will be an interesting test as to whether or not the print media has any sway in influencing the outcome. The hacks at the Sun obediently reproduce what their billionaire, non-dom proprietor expects of them. A few weeks ago the Sun was going to headline that they were about to back Labour. “Labour” is a greyhound, and this was an April Fools’ joke. However, some bright spark at the paper thought that if they did have such a headline their readers might see the headline, not read the accompanying article, and think that the Sun would be supporting the Labour party. This betrays what these people really think of their readership, and as Adam Barnett has shown in his piece the Sun is simply a conduit of Tory propaganda.

  2. Kryten2k35

    It’s beyond me how newspapers are allowed to take sides like this and spread disinformation and lies. Are we in 2015, or is it 1933?

  3. Rachael

    This is so so wrong. They say on their complaints page about the ethical boundaries they must abide by, do they hell. I don’t understand why this paper even still exists.

  4. Theresa

    This is very bad we don’t bloody need this paper telling us who we should vote for at the next election. The Sun should be told about those who commited suicide because of Cameron’s cruel reforms. What about the woman who committed suicide over the bedroom tax?

  5. Cole

    So there’s an Australan running the Tory election campaign and an Australian/American presiding over this crap (and telling us how to vote) in The Sun and Times…

Comments are closed.