PoliticsHome’s Paul Waugh reports the Tory distress at the axing of one of their favourite parts of The Sun:
the long-running News In Briefs section of Page 3 of the Sun (it’s been going since 2003) is, I can report, no more.
The section was missing from today’s paper, now under a new editor, and I understand there are no plans to resurrect it.
Several Tory MPs are already in mourning. The party’s popular ‘Breakfast Club’ of MPs (which numbers ministers as well as backbenchers) has a tradition whereby the newest member of the club has to read out the News in Briefs every day. The newbie has to read out the entry in the voice of the Page 3 girl in question.
One MP texted today three shocked letters on hearing of the culling of their favourite bit of the paper: “OMG”.
Yes, you tread that right: an MP ‘has to read out the entry in the voice of the Page 3 girl in question’. Those modern, enlightened Tories, eh?
* Stephen Tall is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, a Research Associate for the liberal think-tank CentreForum, and also writes at his own site, The Collected Stephen Tall.