Will the Sun put #piggate on its front page tomorrow?

 

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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