Don’t buy it. The Sun is STILL a Unionist rag
By Kevin Williamson
This was the front page of The Sun on Election Day 2007. The usual lies and scare-mongering from the Unionist press. Today The Sun announced its backing the SNP. While professional politicians will, understandably, take any support they can get in a hostile media environment it doesn’t mean that the Independence movement and its supporters should forgive, forget or be naive about the risks that come with supping with the devil.
Rupert Murdoch gives nothing for nothing. When he backed Tony Blair in 1997 he wanted political favours and got them Ditto, David Cameron in 2010. What price will Murdoch have in mind from a second SNP administration? The Sun is still a Unionist rag and the dangers of letting a Unionist Trojan Horse into the Independence camp are very real. They’ll show their true colours when an Independence Referendum Bill is back on the table. Don’t trust them.
You can shout from the rooftops all you want but until the Scottish public realise that
they are supporting a man who wants to rule the world{ie Rupert Murdoch} when they continue to make The Sun the largest selling tabloid newspaper in Scotland. Yes it’s an abomination not worthy of the title of a newspaper but then that doesn’t say much for those who continue to buy it does it
“The Sun is still a Unionist rag and the dangers of letting a Unionist Trojan Horse into the Independence camp are very real.”
I’d agree. If a Scottish owned paper (are there any?) had come out for independence and the SNP I might believe it to be genuine but the owner of the Sun is News International and the Scottish Sun is just a Scottish edition of a Tory supporting UK paper.
I don’t think there is anyone who believes that this anything more than a sales ploy to try and increase sales and pinch a few of the Daily Record’s nationalist inclined readership. It’s got nothing to do with the SNP, independence, boosting David Cameron or even Scotland. It’s got everything to do with £££££ signs.
Salmond should keep the Sun at arms length and treat it as a currently useful but dangerous and untrustworthy mercenary.
I love the line ‘Murdoch gives nothing for nothing’ – spot on.
I totally agree that the Sun is a rag – for me it’s the sexism which is the biggest concern. I can’t believe it still has page 3 in this day and age, and today’s edition was full of sexist rot – about the ‘fillies’ from the Miss Scotland competition who are ‘hot to trot’ and about a TV star’s new boobs, which obviously have made her a happier person, and about a podium dancer who loves her job, etc etc. All designed to keep women in their place – objects, not equal partners.
That’s one of many reasons it’s not a good bedfellow, for the SNP or any party.
Theres something a bit sad rather than seedy about page 3 pictures in a national newspaper. In the age of the internet where nudity/porn is ubiquitous to the point of background muzak the Suns page 3 model is like a tired old seaside postcard or a re-run of an old episode of Benny Hill.
I agree that Rupert Murdoch should be kept at arm’s length. I borrowed your image from 2007, but added a more frightening one. Look here and you will see that Alex Salmond holding the Scottish Sun is uncannily similar to Lembit Öpik holding the Daily Sport.
Feel free. And thanks for the link to your Independent Wales blog. Will keep an eye on it.
Never look a gift horse in the mouth! There’s an interesting and sensible analysis in Caledonian Mercury of the reasons underlying the Sun’s change of strategy. The Sun also had an excellent article on how voting Labour is dangerous for your health. This shows the vast majority of Scotland’s deprived areas being represented by Labour MPs and MSPs who have done absolutely nothingto improve the lot of their constituents over the decades. This is the sort of the thing that the SNP should be highlighting and exploiting. Time to go for the jugular!
I do not buy ANY!! newspaper all I need is on the web. For to long the unionist papers have waged an active campaign against SNP. I am fully aware that some may say you have to see what the others are saying, again I have the web for that. Anyone that buys any paper and supports what the SNP stand for are just lining the coffers of the same unionists whether left or right wing . I would urge all to stop buying any paper unless it is the Scots Independant.
If Alec salmond can stomach it, so can I.
Remember, we can’t be betrayed by a business with its only principal being profit (in all its forms).
One day, it will be irrelevant as people dump newsPaper and get their entertainment from the net.
Don’t buy it but don’t sweat it either. It’s just a phase.
There is, of course, the pragmatic “take the support for the next two weeks and then ditch them approach”. Nothing wrong with that, in and of itself.
A problem may occur if/when newly-elected or re-elected politicians start jostling for column inches AFTER the election. “Look what I said/done, and aint I clever?”
Is there any politician immune to the self-deluding egotism that comes with seeing a photo of oneself in a national newspaper beneath a complimentary headline? Its a boost-the-profile-to-help-my-career thang. And its by no means exclusive to the SNP, or even the four mainstream parties. It’s a rat trap, baby.
KW
I have done as much as most to set out my antipathy to the Murdoch Press, and I am not a tabloid reader. But the truth is the truth and facts are facts, and appearing in The Sun does not make them on less so. I sent the following letter to Andrew Nicoll, political editor of the Sun after Tuesday’s edition and I meant every word of it.
Andrew,
A superb article, wwith powerful facts and statistics. You have done a
real service to Scotland and to the city of my birth, Glasgow.
I was Labour born and bred- delivered leaflets as a 10-year old for
the 1945 general election in Dennistoun. It took over 50 years to
recognise that the Labour Party I believed in was dead, and that the
thing it had become was destroying the people and the city – and the
country – I loved.
Thank you.
Peter Curran
Facts are chiels that winna ding, and downa be disputed, and if The Sun publishes them and reaches a wide audience, then I am happy to support them in that. I would rather the party took a pragmatic approach to welcome support from an unlikely quarter than hold their noses in the air and allow the next five years to destroy everything the Nationalist government has achieved in four short years. The future of Scotland hangs on this election, and I for one have confidence in Alex Salmond’s recognition that politics makes for unlikely bedfellows.
I don’t like any of this either, but they do say there’s no such thing as bad publicity. The Sun’s tactics may actually work in our favour in the end up.
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Murdoch really won’t be bothered who runs the Scottish executive, it’s Cameron he’s supporting here. The SNP are who the coalition will prefer at the head of the executive because they will likely – as before – be relying on Conservative votes to pass budgets and they provide softer opposition to Westminster than Labour would. Once they’re back to talking about national governmental politics, the Sun will soon be shining on the tories again.
Likewise there are benefits for the Sun itself, the sun has been cultivating a generally centre-right readership. But as the Scottish Conservatives have been hilariously inept, many centre-right voters have instead been giving their mandate to the SNP or statistically irrelevant parties like ukip. By feigning support for the nationalists now, they are holding back from alienating those defecting voters as readers.
I also think in the long term Murdoch could be looking to the readership of an independent Scotland, however in all probability it’s just to hurt Labour in England.
Moreover, the Sun is not halting the SNP’s upward progress, so it’s also to their benefit to help the winning side.
I suspect the love-in will be over a couple of weeks after the Holyrood election.