Scum-watch: Language not fit for a family newspaper.
The Sun was outraged last week when Greg Mulholland of the Liberal Democrats allegedly called health minister Ivan Lewis an "arsehole" while in the Commons, saying in a leader it was language not fit for reprinting in a "family newspaper". That on its own brings to mind the old notion that you can see tits on the third page of the newspaper, but not actually in print, where it'll likely be censored to "t*ts". The Scum's currently piss-poor editor of Bizarre, Gordon Smart, has taken to referring to what you and I know as breasts as "bangers".Imagine my surprise then when this morning's front page screams "A LOAD OF PRIX" referring to those in the crowd in Spain at the weekend who racially abused Lewis Hamilton. I wonder how many parents had to explain what that meant to their inquisitive younger children this morning.
Elsewhere, ignoring the Scum's expected supporting of the bugging of MPs, especially when it also involves "terror suspects", it's rather proving itself amazingly hypocritical on verbal abuse itself. A couple of weeks ago the leader column tut-tutted at MPs' debating skills:
SUN reader Dr Stuart Newton tells the PM that Britain’s yob culture is little surprise when our own MPs behave like thugs.
Once again he speaks for us all.
Far too often Commons debates degenerate into childish bellowing and taunts.
These are our lawmakers, meant to set the country’s moral tone, braying like donkeys.
You won't note any of the above qualities in the following dignified rebuke directed at "millionaires hunting bears in Russia":
RUSSIA is fast gaining an image as a nation of swaggering bullies.Hard-eyed President Vladimir Putin, ex-KGB officer, loves throwing his weight around.
Newly-rich Russian tourists are becoming even less popular than the Germans.Today’s Sun carries shocking pictures of a cowardly “hunter” after gunning down a hibernating bear asleep in its den.
Hundreds more of these wonderful animals are slaughtered as gory trophies by bloodthirsty millionaires.
Russians used to be known as thoughtful, poetry-loving, chess playing intellectuals.
Today they are seen as corrupt, vodka-swigging thugs with more money than brains.
Quite so. After all, no one in America, Rupert Murdoch's adopted country, goes hunting or slaughters animals for fun. Or at least, when they try to, they tend to shoot each other, and then only talk to err, Fox News.
Labels: bullshit, Greg Mulholland, hypocrisy, Scum-watch, Sun-watch, swearing
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