Quite a lot of hot words over a publication. Doesn't matter to me whether they close it or not, I'm not a Sun look at the pictures man (nearly said reader there). The most valid point is the possible loss of the non-journalistic jobs in distribution and so I hope he keeps it open!

ps I'm getting worried, I agreed with a couple of things Spud said!

Good to see the progs at their magnanimous best today. "It has for decades consistently sought to undermine the interests of ordinary working people in the interests of the global plutocracy." You should repeat that in the bathroom mirror so you can see how ridiculous you look.

"Can you imagine basildon white van man reading the Mirror and becoming a lefty?"

Or, in an even more ridiculous scenario, the Dependent or the Groaner?

I don't really care if the Sun goes down because its two million+ readership aren't going to buy another newspaper ever again. The only thing that will happen is that the British newspaper industry's slow death will accelerate. In 10-15 years the only thing left will be a 40 page thick Guardian being propped up by a trust fund with a readership of 500 civil servants and think tank members seeking to confirm their own biases.

Oh, and British progs will have to find something else to blame for the electorate continually rejecting their moronic policies.

"So rejoice in the (hopefully swift) demise of the Sun and all it stands for...and next on the list (in my perfect world) would be the Daily Sieg Heil...you go Hugh, and give them hell.."

So you're another who only wants a press that's in tune with his politics...and you think this is a good idea? Have you really thought through the consequences?

And I'm the hysterical one?

Can you imagine basildon white van man reading the Mirror and becoming a lefty?

The influence of the Sun is too oft overplayed.

Mitch

!!!?YAWN¿!!!!!...look at me Mitch...look how ferociously I'm yawning Mitch...look how bored I am...I'm just way too bored to come up with an answer Mitch...honest Mitch, it's not that I couldn't, if I wanted... I'm just so fuckin ?YAWN¿ bored with you.

Des

again...am I your muse? Can you write anything of your own volition which isn't a response to me? Do you love me, or something?

Spud,

"...and you're an elitist liberal tyrant."

Yawn!

Wake up call (or yawn). I am yawning at your ranting idiocy. Stop smoking skunk mate, it isn't helping. Yow look like something out of an episode on an American soap 'look at me...I'm just so yawning'. I can almost see you making little quotation marks with your fingers.

"Stop smoking skunk mate, it isn't helping."...that's weird Mitch. I had decided to give up...down to my last quarter...I wish you hadn't said that.

"I am yawning at your ranting idiocy"

Oh no. "Ranting": I accept...I was born a ranter. "Idiocy" is what you're meant to demonstrate, only you've given that up and rely on attempts at slick little put-downs which simply don't work outside of your head.

"I can almost see you making little quotation marks with your fingers."
I work with my hands mitch, my hands don't do irony...imagine instead the middle finger of my right hand stiff and skyward.

It's definitely time for The Sun to go the way of NOTW, and for newpapers to face the same sort of regulation as broadcasters. 'State regulation' is a red herring in the debate, and statutory independent regulation is the answer.

Spud - it was hysterical of you to accuse me and others of wanting to "censor the press"..I dont, I just want a criminal Mafia-style news organisation to be punished for its endemic criminality, and in the Sun's case, it should be closed down by Murdoch at once..Mohan and Kavanagh apparently still argue that they have done nothing wrong at all, and even now are attempting yet more bullying, intimidation and threats, this time of their erstwhile allies and protectors, the Met Police...

It was hysterical of you to use loaded language like "liberal censorship" and accuse me of "demonising the working class" who read that rag..I am working class myself, and loathe the way that many right wing columnists like Jon Gaunt and Nick Ferrari and Richard Littlejohn DO demonise the working class - in the very pages of the Sun, Mail, Express et al, with their daily tales of scroungers and chavs and lager louts and thugs and pramfaces...you should have noticed that it is the Sun and others who do - on a daily basis - what you accuse me of!

It is the Sun and Murdoch who are merciless and pitliess in kicking their enemies, as Gordon Brown or Robert Murat or Chris Jeffries can attest...as another poster said, a free press can only be improved BY the closure of such dishonest, hate-filled, and, most importantly, endemically criminal newspapers...

So yes Spud, think through your posts and dont be hysterical..my reasons for wanting the demise of the Sun and the rest are thought through, logical, and yes, moral..and this is the New Statesman, Spud..it is meant to be a forum for ethical, moral and progressive issues!

"'State regulation' is a red herring in the debate, and statutory independent regulation is the answer."

...and of course the state would have no hand at all in appointing the 'independent' regulators? Don't be a muppet...you really think the 'state' isn't loving this shite: populist demands for more 'control' of the media...think about it. If they've broken the law, lock the fuckers up...fair enough. Don't wish a government regulated press on yourself just because your historical horizon can't rise above the last 18 months or so.

"If it did go down the dinosaurs' road, how long do you suppose anybody would remember it for? It's the journalistic equivalent of lead in petrol. Once it's gone it'll barely be mentioned again, just like lead in petrol, which also caused brain damage in children."

Yeah...in our happy clappy new non-offensive media paradigm, nobody would shed a tear for the Sun. Then again, I reckon all politicians would suddenly become squeaky clean, all 'celebs' paragons of morality, all Russian oligarchs magnanimous and philanthropic and all corporate bosses astute and deserving. Least ways, we'd never hear otherwise. Is that what you want? Are you really that bloody short sighted?

If the Sun does nothing else, it sticks the knife into any moralising hypocrite or crook who happens to be an enemy of Murdoch. If you don't think that's even handed, then that's because his mates should be targets for the rest of an unrestricted media. Shutting down newspapers is never good news. Lock the bastards up if they've got it coming, but don't stifle the press...and don't think twitter's the answer, either.

The Sun is the green snot that shows our democracy has a bad cold but it is alive. The Sun is the only thing that puts the shits up the privilidged classes. Do we have morals from the likes of Hugh Grant, anyway?

Surely the point is to create and educate a society so that "celebs, tits and sport" are regarded as cringe-worthy prurient bullshit; relegated to the middle-pages by 'weightier' matters?

And can you even stand the thought of the triumphalism of those lame stand-ups that so thrill BBC producers with their self-deprecation and 'inclusiveness'? Fuck them...losing the Sun's the equivalent of the loss of Jerry Sadowitz and Bernard Manning to make way for that bunch of subsidised fuckwits...or the patronising outpourings of the nepotistic, talentless, clueless and chinless appointees of the Guardian etc.

"if only the Sun was gone, my life would be so much better".

Mr Hyperbole himself. I don't think life will be better if the Sun goes, I'm just not convinced it will be any worse - except that one more source of cheap fire-lighting paper will have gone, but there's always the local rag (NS paper is too shiny btw).

"...and you're an elitist liberal tyrant."

Yawn!

It would be like mourning the loss of the Volkischer Beobachter. A vile,sub-fascist rag permeated with mendacity, false patriotism (how much tax does NI pay?) and bogus sentimentality. It has for decades consistently sought to undermine the interests of ordinary working people in the interests of the global plutocracy.
I look forward to wiping my a*** on the farewell issue. As for the hacks, and i speak as one myself, f*** 'em. Kavanagh's bleating today is rich in its irony.

gerry

as it goes, I can't see your position as essentially different to Mc Mac's...

"If The Sun was shutdown tomorrow it would be the biggest boost to the freedom of the press in living memory."

namely a position that only exists in a logical universe where the closure of a newspaper represents "biggest boost to the freedom of the press in living memory"...now call me a logical essentialist, if you like...but please accept I'm not just working class in the sense of "my dad worked...blah blah" but in the sense of "I'm a builder who just about gets buy cos I live and work in area that never even recovered from Thatcher, never mind the latest catastophe"...but even so, I'm willing to accept that there will always be organs of the press with whom I fundamentally disagree on every particular...that's the price of pluralism and free speech. I'll say again, you can never defeat bad ideas through legislation; only by promoting self-evidently better ideas.

Spud, you are right, you cant kill bad ideas by censorship, but you CAN say (and I do say), we will not allow serious criminal activities to go unchecked year after year beacuse the perpetrator of those thousands of crimes is a powerful media agency..

The Sun, and News intl, are institutionally criminal and - I would argue - rotten to the very core..

They are also endemically criminal..bribing the police and the civil service 100% undermines the rule of law, democracy, equality before the law.

And they are actually not sorry about their crimes, if you listen to Mohan and Kavanagh...and the crimes they have committed are now being exposed for all to see by Leveson and Weeting and Elveden

The closure of the Sun is a moral issue, Spud...they must pay for their many many serious crimes, just like the News of the World, who ruined thousands of innocent lives over the years...closure will send a strong message to other media groups: time is up for your criminal-media activities! And - as per your argument -right wing readers have lots of other outlets for their views! In fact, 90% of the print media is by any definition right-wing! So they would still have the Star, Telegraph, Times, Express, Mail - oh wait, they would still have the overwhelming majority of the daily print media...so no real censorship of their ideas then, Spud. Enough is enough.

"The Sun, and News intl, are institutionally criminal and - I would argue - rotten to the very core.. "

The Sun and News intl. are legal entities, abstract concepts, convenient fictions...they are not organisms with free will and agency. They do not have a conscience, they do not suffer pain you can't see or touch them. It's people gerry...people every way you look at it...individuals with names who took conscious choices to act illegally.

"So they would still have the Star, Telegraph, Times, Express, Mail - oh wait, they would still have the overwhelming majority of the daily print media...so no real censorship of their ideas then.."

gerry, that's just fatuous...you just hate the Sun...which I can fully understand, but trying to justify its closure in these terms reveals your real motive. You seem to think you're involved in some binary opposition between the left and right wing press. You think-rightly-the Sun's closing would even up the score, give your 'team' a bit of a boost. You're not a moral actor in this gerry, you're a partisan supporter trying to get a result. Fair enough, gerry, I can understand that, but please don't pretend your argument comes from any universal principles.