Sun Respect For Dead Hypocrisy

As if the faux outrage over whether Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn bowed sufficiently at yesterday’s Remembrance celebration at the Cenotaph yesterday had not been enough, today, like a dog returning to its vomit, has come the Super Soaraway Currant Bun to put the boot in on the grounds that, well, that’s what the Sun does to any politician who dares not to give its singularly unpleasant hacks preferential treatment.

One has to admit that the rest of the right-leaning part of those who scrabble around the dunghill that is Grubstreet have been just as full of righteous froth this morning, but the Murdoch boot boys are the only ones making it their front page lead. “Snub on poppy day … Pacifist Corbyn refuses to bow … NOD IN MY NAME” screams the headline”. There is even an intervention from an “etiquette expert”. Etiquette. In the Sun.

And, as Sir Sean nearly said, I think we got the point. As a piece of attack-dog ranting, this may convince some, but there are signs that the Sun’s over-the-top howling denunciation of everything Corbyn does are wearing thin. Commenters across social media - including those who stop by at the piss-poor SunNation website - are wearying of the behaviour. And the Sun has no room to suggest disrespect of the dead.

Moreover, what the Murdoch faithful are not telling their readers is that, instead of joining in the VIP luncheon after the service of remembrance, Corbyn went out on to Whitehall and Horse Guards Parade to meet with veterans and show his personal support for them. Young Dave did not. Corbyn joined in the applause of the march-past by all those who had served our country. Cameron was absent elsewhere.

After the Cenotaph service, Corbyn attended a remembrance event in his constituency, before going to watch Arsenal play Spurs, where he showed his support for the campaign to get his club to pay all its workers the living wage. The Labour leader showed his willingness to be a proper community politician, to show directly his support for those who elected him. None of this can be seen in the pages of the Sun.

He also showed respect for not only the dead, but also our armed forces. The Sun, on the other hand, has a woeful reputation for disrespecting the dead, on an individual basis, or in groups, or indeed during a time of war. It was the Sun that exploited the death of Reeva Steenkamp by splashing a bikini photo of her on its front page, when they knew she had been shot dead, probably by her partner, athlete Oscar Pistorius.

It was the Sun that used the one-word headline GOTCHA after a British submarine torpedoed and sank the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano, with the loss of hundreds of lives. And it was the Sun that trampled over the death of 96 Liverpool fans in the Hillsborough stadium disaster in one of the most infamous smear campaigns in living memory. Nobody should take lessons on respecting the dead from the Sun.

The Sun has confirmed it is the very lowest form of journalistic life. No change there, then.