The Scottish Sun 'kick-starts' political support debate
With The Sun announcing its support of David Cameron and the Conservative Party ahead of the next elections, The Scottish Sun has said that while the paper has lost confidence in The Labour Party, it has yet to declare who it will back.
The Sun is running a front cover with the headline 'Labour's Lost it' the morning after Gordon Brown's rallying call to his party ahead of an impending general election.
The newspaper also features a 'Dossier of Their Failures'.
David Dinsmore, editor of The Scottish Sun, explained that the newspaper was now looking to ‘kick-start a debate’ in Scotland.
“It is not beyond the realms of possibility that the Conservatives will win the next election so Scotland is going to have to make a decision as to whether it will hide under the covers for the next 10 years and say ‘this is nothing to do with us’ or find a way in which we can work with the Conservatives. The most important thing is that we now see from David Cameron what he wants and what he is going to give Scotland.”
When Labour previously won the UK election, The Sun’s cover read ‘One More Chance’ over ‘a lacklustre Tory Party’ and four years down the line The Sun has decided the party has not succeeded.
“I would love to be in a position where we were saying that ‘we don’t have record nation debt, we don’t have unemployment at 2.6million, we don’t have a war in Afghanistan, we don’t have the lives of our troops being put on the line due to a lack of kit, but unfortunately we do have all those things and that must fall at the feet of the Government,” continued Dinsmore.
“Our decision is a reflection of what the public are saying to us as well. The opinion polls of our readers are pointing to, nationally, The Labour Party loosing the next election and it’s our job to reflect that.”
He also explaining that The Scottish Sun had not taken the decision lightly and highlighted that the paper had supported the Labour Party for 12 years.
“That’s a long time,” he concluded.