On the morning of the 1992 general election, The Sun ran one of the most infamous headlines in British history -
"If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights"
Curiously, however, we learned from a Murdoch apologist on Newsnight last night that this was in no sense an attempt to tell people "not to vote for Kinnock".
Crikey. It does rather beg the question - what on earth would a proper anti-Kinnock headline have looked like?
Presumably their follow up 'It's the Sun wot won it' referred to something other than the election result in this alternative reality?
ReplyDeletePS Did you see Jon Stewart's take on the hacking scandal? Enough to tempt a loon out of retirement, at least for a little while!
Hi, FL - unfortunately I got a "this video is not available in Great Britain" message, but I can imagine!
ReplyDeleteBugger. I daresay you'll find it if you google around for it. Fortunately we don't have much trouble with access rights in Brigadoon!
ReplyDeleteFinally found it, at the New Statesman of all places!
ReplyDeleteNo apologist for Murdoch here, but, isn't it interesting to see that, now that Murdoch is neutered, there are no end to the number of people who want to stick the knife in.
ReplyDeleteEven the ex prime minister who has put in only the rare appearance at Westminster for the £66,000 he doesn't do, was there in the throng.
So, they must believe that whatever dirty little secret Digger has on them is now worth next to nothing. I'd not be betting on that if I were them.
But a serious point in all this is that, now that we appear to be in the process of stripping power from the press, we need to be careful that we don't throw the proverbial baby out, and we need to watch where that power now goes.
PS You're probably not going to believe this, but the word verification for this post was "snotais".