What would the Sun do if this story was about Jeremy Corbyn?
These are the times that try men’s souls.
Claims the prime minister placed his honourable member in the mouth of a dead pig’s head while a student at Oxford, are like manna from heaven for the tabloid press.
All things being equal, Lord Ashcroft’s claims, published in today’s Daily Mail, would (to mix animal metaphors) be milked for all they are worth by a newspaper like the Sun.
But for Rupert Murdoch’s flagship red-top, some animals are more equal than others.
For while the Sun delighted in running cartoons about Ed Miliband every day for the last five years, never missing a chance to ridicule the Labour party leader, his rival David Cameron has been largely spared the same treatment.
Now the paper is faced with a choice.
Will the Sun cover the pig’s head claims as if the ‘private parts’ in question belonged to a Labour rather than Tory minister?
Put simply: what would the Sun do if this story was about Jeremy Corbyn?
Already the paper has begun cartooning Miliband’s replacement – including over his love life, decades after events took place.
How can it justify leaving a target as fat as this go by?
The Sun’s websites have started the bidding today in typical style. Now the question is:
Will the Sun put #piggate on its front page tomorrow?
Will there be giant headline puns and mock-up photos and cartoons?
Or will the paper lay bare its party bias, and make a joke of its claim to equal opportunity irreverence?
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Adam Barnett is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow MediaWatch on Twitter
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34 Responses to “Will the Sun put #piggate on its front page tomorrow?”
Godfrey Paul
Student pranks. Get over it.
Better than going on those awful demos.
Vice Squad
It’s not a simple as that, it is the twisted mindset of a human being to consider a dead creature to be funny, or for them to see the abuse of animals and hunting the norm that are questionable. Compassion is learned at a very early stage, you cannot dismiss this story as mere trivia, the man has lead the country for many years now, hiding his silly pranks from the rest of us whilst Corbyn’s every squeak and fart are scrutinised.
Dark_Heart_of_Toryland
Presumably, with your concern for honour and decency, you’ve been equally disgusted by the slavering mob which has set out to monster Jeremy Corbyn?
Dark_Heart_of_Toryland
Oh come on, what ‘honour and decency’ is possessed by the right? The Tories are busily abandoning the sick and the destitute to die. Where’s the ‘honour and decency’ in that?
Faerieson
Me thinks that Rupert the dead pig, figuratively bit off two mysterious spheres, thus gaining magical control over the whole kingdom. And very few people lived happily ever after.