News from Labour Matters

The Sun shines in the gutter

The readers of The Sun, like most of us, would no doubt have been disgusted to learn that a 17 year old man with learning difficulties may have lost his mother to arson last week. They will have been appalled that yet another victim of systematic bullying had been allowed to reach such an awful conclusion. That’s because readers of The Sun, like most of us in Britain, believe in fairness above all.

When film-makers want to depict bullying on screen the cliché is for the bully to remove the victim’s spectacles and crush them underfoot. And when they do, whether it’s a WW2 Gestapo officer intent on obtaining information or in a playground spat, our hearts go out to the victim. Quite right too.

That’s why we’re sure that readers of The Sun today, irrespective of whether they like Gordon Brown or Labour, will view the frontpage story in their favourite paper with the contempt they feel for all bullies who pick on a disability to define the person. The PM’s poorly crafted letter wasn’t meant to be disrespectful, far from it, it was the work of a man who has severe trouble with his sight, but still doesn’t lack political vision.

He shouldn’t be defined by his disability, but lauded for his courage and fortitude. And nobody needs to tell the Prime Minister what it feels like to lose a loved one prematurely, least of all The Sun. But at least we now know how low the people behind The Sun’s headlines will go in their cheerleading for a Conservative victory at the next election.

It is The Sun who should be hanging their heads in shame today, not Gordon Brown.

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