There, on live television, was Wednesday’s Sun – headline: “Labour’s Lost It” – being ripped apart by Tony Woodley of Unite, who clearly had.
It was the image of the 2009 conference season. Labour had been eclipsed by The Sun.
Not only did Labour lose the plot over The Sun’s defection to the Tories (south of the Border at least), they followed the script written for them by the “Dirty Digger”, Rupert Murdoch, and his tabloid henchperson Rebekah Brooks (nee Wade).
The Sun is mainly interested not in politics but in selling newspapers, and Labour’s over-reaction gave the organ publicity that couldn’t be bought.
Even kindly pussycat Lord Peter Mandelson, normally an astute media operator, fell for The Sun’s stunt and stomped off to give the editor a piece of his mind.
“You’ll be regarded as a bunch of chumps for this,” he said, though earlier reports suggested that the business secretary had used a rather different C-word. Harriet Harman, the Labour deputy leader, gave The Sun not one but two conference plugs. In her first speech, she told comrades: “Don’t get outraged, get out there.” Then she delivered the ill-advised soundbite of the week: “This underdog is biting back.” Woof woof.
In her second sales promotion for News International she pointed out that Thursday’s bare-breasted page three girl was called Harriet and hailed from Peckham. Just like the deputy leader. What a coincidence! And what an image: a topless Harman delivering her thoughts on current affairs in the news in briefs. Phwhhoaar! The obvious question, though, is if The Sun is so objectionable in its treatment of women, why did Harman not disown it before? Has she never noticed page three?
Or was it something to do with the Currant Bun delivering shed-loads of votes to New Labour?
Harman then decided to give some free publicity to pimps as well as soft pornographers. She called on the “Governator”, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to shut down a Californian-based website called Punternet on the grounds that it promotes prostitution in Britain.
Never having heard of the site, and purely in a spirit of journalistic inquiry, I naturally googled Punternet, along with the rest of the male population of Britain. It turns out to be a kind of noticeboard for ladies of the night offering various evening classes including “A-levels, OWO and CIM”. I was later informed that these acronyms refer not to academic qualifications, but to unmentionable sexual practices.
Thanks to Harman’s free publicity, these terms are now destined to become common currency among the teenage Facebook community. Punternet will be joining The Sun in laughing all the way to the bank. And that final score again: pimps and pornographers 2; Labour 0.
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