Tuesday 14 June 2016

Sunny Delight?

The Sun and the Daily Mail are each bought by three per cent of the adult population, with only six per cent telling the most recent Ofcom survey that they obtained their news from either title.

By way of contrast, 48 per cent did so from BBC One alone, with another 23 per cent using the BBC's website and apps. Add those two figures together, and allow your jaw to drop.

Up here, at least, The Sun is increasingly given away in supermarkets for free. For free.

The penny seems to have dropped, so to speak, that this relentlessly twentieth century publication is an elaborate public school joke on such readers as it still has.

So, while any support is welcome, do not think too much about the position of The Sun or the Daily Mail on the EU referendum.

Especially because it is inconceivable that anyone on The Sun's editorial staff believes a word of it, but Rupert Murdoch wants to make Michael Gove Prime Minister, something that is extremely unlikely to happen in any event.

Instead, consider that the Parliament of the United Kingdom has legislated for longer paid holiday leave than is required by the EU, for 52 weeks of maternity leave rather than the mere 14 weeks that is the EU's legal standard, for the maternity pay that is not required at all by the EU (no, not a penny), for equal pay three years before this country ever even joined what is now the EU, and for a minimum wage that the EU does not require in any form (again, no, not a penny).

Dutifully unreported by the BBC, the privatisation of the English NHS has already been going on for half a decade. Ask the junior doctors how the EU is protecting the NHS. Ask the steelworkers how the EU is protecting their industry. Ask the Durham Teaching Assistants how the EU is protecting their rights.

12 comments:

  1. The two biggest-selling newspapers in Britain.2 million and 1.8 million copies a day, respectively. And Mail Online is the second most-read online news site in the world.

    The big guns of the right-wing press are leading the campaign for Leave outside Parliament.

    And the big guns in the Cabinet are leading it in Parliament.

    I've never heard Peter Hitchens sound so optimistic.

    What a turnaround.

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    1. The two biggest-selling newspapers in Britain.

      A relative statement.

      2 million and 1.8 million copies a day, respectively.

      That's not a lot, in a country of this size.

      Mail Online is the second most-read online news site in the world.

      Mostly in America, mostly about the Kardashians and whatnot.

      The big guns of the right-wing press

      There are no longer any such things.

      And the big guns in the Cabinet are leading it in Parliament.

      Rubbish. Who?

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  2. "That's not a lot."

    It is, since no other newspaper sells anything close.

    "Mostly in America."

    The Mail is the most-read online newspaper in Britain.

    "Rubbish. Who?"

    Michael Gove, Chris Grayling and the former Tory leader IDS who departed so he could lead it.

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    1. It is, since no other newspaper sells anything close.

      Meaning that newspapers don't really matter anymore.

      The Mail is the most-read online newspaper in Britain.

      Again, a relative statement. Again, mostly about the Kardashians and whatnot. And again, nothing on its audience in America, at which it is now mostly pitched.

      Michael Gove, Chris Grayling and the former Tory leader IDS

      So, no one of any importance at all, then.

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    2. That's the thing with the Far Right, they are legends in their own minds. When Lord Hill was made an EU Commissioner they all claimed he was obscure. So obscure that he was a Cabinet Minister who had been made a Commissioner. They all wanted Hannan to have it. Because he was more important! More important to them, you see.

      The Prime Minister, Chancellor (who is also First Secretary of State), Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Defence Secretary, Health Secretary, Education Secretary and on and on and on, all Remainers. The main Leave campaigner has never been a Minister and barely been an MP but thinks he should be Prime Minister this year.

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    3. Quite. Add in a failed Education Secretary (the only one ever sacked by order of the teaching unions) and spectacularly failed Chief Whip (two defections to UKIP), who now has the half of the old Home Office that no one more important wants. Add in a bloke who was demoted even from that, and who now just does the timetable for the people really matter. And add in Iain Duncan Smith, the mere mention of whom speaks for itself.

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    4. Johnson and Gove were pro-EU until they thought they might gety PM out of backing Brexit, Johnson also supported totally unrestricted immigration in opposition to the Brown Government and to the policies of Ed Miliband. But the strongly pro-EU Tory parliamentary party will never be led by a Brexiteer even after the referendum, they just wouldn't stand for it. Johnson and Gove have no chance, they have backed the wrong horse even if there's a vote to Leave.

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  3. That's not a lot, in a country of this size.

    Lindsay has plainly never heard of the decline of newspaper print circulation, since it was replaced by online news.

    Left-wing titles like the Independent have been driven to the wall.

    Only the right-wing ones are still profitable at all.

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    1. Right-wing? If anything, I suppose. But they barely do politics. The Sun is a football fanzine, and the Daily Mail is a celebrity gossip mag eating out on its Saturday television listings supplement.

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    2. The Premier League could reduce the Sun to a husk by setting up its own weekly magazine and banning all other pint media contact by its clubs and players, that mag would also make the League, clubs and players an absolute mint.

      The BBC could drive the Daily Mail online only if it announced that channels wholly or partly BBC-owned would in future give their listings to a weekly BBC magazine only. If ITV and Channel 4, maybe also Channel 5 now it's no longer bound up with the Express, came in, that would be the end of the Mail's print edition. And another huge money spinner for those involved.

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