To: The Sun
Dear Sirs,
Thank you for sending me a free copy of your paper in the
post on Friday. However, as you have probably gathered from the ripped up
remains of said paper that accompany this letter, I have chosen not to take you
up on this offer and returned said paper via your Freepost service.
The reason for this is that frankly, I do not want to part
of a Britain that takes its values from a bunch of lowlife vermin such as
yourselves – seeing the paper headline of “This is OUR Britain” is something that
fills me with dread and I hope that this is far from the only ripped up or
defaced copy of your paper that you have received in the last few days.
Your paper purports to be a vehicle for reflecting the views
of the ordinary man in the street but the truth is that, to paraphrase an old
saying, the Sun has about as much to do with promoting what is best for the
working class of this country as Eric Pickles does with entering the World
Hang-Gliding Championships. At the moment there are a lot of angry, hurt and
confused people out there. People who have seen their futures gambled away by
greedy bankers and neglectful politicians. People who have found themselves
turfed out of previously secure jobs and now find themselves on the dole queue
with their benefits slashed by a government that doesn’t care about them.
This is surely a time where we should be asking questions
about why the banking sector was allowed to run riot with this country’s money
unchecked by anyone for so long and why the politicians (both the Tories and
Labour) did so little to stop it. We should be asking questions about why the ordinary families of Britain are being bled dry by greedy corporate fat cats running our electricity and public transport companies. We should be asking questions about why despite this government assuring us all that the country is coming out of recession, that more people are living below the poverty line than ever before. We should be asking questions about why the NHS and our free education system, once the two crown jewels in the country's welfare state, are being dismantled by stealth by this government allowing private companies, whose aim isn't to ensure that patients are treated well or that kids receive the best education possible but to make a quick buck and then get out again, to slither in via the back door.
Yet rather than asking those questions, your
paper takes a two fold approach to making sure that the working class of this
country don’t dare question those who are really responsible for the mess we’re
in. Firstly, you seek to deflect the blame on to the easiest targets in society
– benefit seekers and illegal immigrants, the sort of people without any voice
in our society who can’t fight back to defend themselves. Never mind the fact
that for every benefits “cheat” that you so gloatingly expose, there are at
least 999 other people signing on who are genuinely there for a reason, perhaps
because they suffer from a disease that really does stop them working, perhaps
because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and saw the business
they worked for (or even the business they tried to set up and run) wiped out
when the country’s economy took a downward turn and now find themselves
searching for a job when there are no jobs available. And now because of
pressure from your hateful paper, it’s harder than ever for people who need
benefits to claim them. Soon, these people abandoned at the bottom of the heap
won’t even be able to afford healthcare as this government embarks on stealth
privatisation of the NHS, again cheered on by the hack journalists you employ.
Let’s be clear here, the NHS is one of the wonders of our society and the
majority of other countries in this world would give their right arms to have
something along its lines. Yet your paper seems to believe it’s a “drain on
society” (translation – our fat cat business mates would earn even more money
if health in this country were privatised and they could make a killing by
charging people through the nose for inferior treatment to what they receive on
the NHS now). If you honestly believe that a Britain where all healthcare must
be paid for is a good idea, I recommend you watch the Michael Moore documentary
“Sicko” about the American healthcare system and then take a good long hard
look at yourselves. In the meantime, if you're really that concerned about the country losing money via benefits cheats, maybe you should do a couple of exposes on corporate tax avoidance which costs this country ten times more. Oh sorry, I forgot, most of the people doing that are probably mates of yours, aren't they?
As for your shameful diatribes against immigrants and asylum
seekers, it’s a well known fact that immigrants actually create more money for
this country’s economy than they take out of it in benefits and well over 90%
of them are safely employed and paying tax within three months of arriving in
this country but you’d never know that by reading a copy of your paper. They’re
an easy target and it’s a way to keep the working class of this country
fighting amongst each other using horrible racist stereotypes rather than concentrating on a common enemy, namely
those in the financial and political sectors who got us into this mess in the
first place. These shameful distortions of the facts that your paper publishes
on a regular basis are at least indirectly (if not directly) responsible for
the terrifying rise of quasi-fascist parties like the UKIP in this country.
Let’s not mince words here – I’m a proud Brit. England is
the country that I was born in and the country that I’m proud to call home.
Like my fellow countrymen, I observed the commemoration of the D-Day landings
this week just gone, one of the episodes in this country’s history that I feel
we should be the most proud of. I wonder how the soldiers who gave their lives
that day fighting the dark spectre of fascism would feel if they knew 70 years
later that there is a new fascist upsurgence in Europe and that this time
Britain, thanks to Nigel Farage, is one of the countries at the forefront of
it. Personally, if I was writing for your paper and saw what happened in the
European Elections a couple of weeks ago, I think I’d find it hard sleeping at
night.
The second prong of your attack to prevent the working class
of this country asking too many questions while pretending to be on their side is to brainwash those who
maybe aren’t fooled by your biased political reporting with a flood of cheap
pseudo-celebrity tittle tattle dressed up as news. Day in day out, your paper
bombards its readers with stories about so-called “celebrities” who seem to be
famous for reasons not entirely comprehensible to anyone looking at their
history. People like Katie Price, Kim Kardashian, Simon Cowell and his hateful
army of Saturday night karaoke contestants, the cast members of shows such as “The
Only Way Is Essex”. The sort of people who are, quite frankly, a waste of
flesh, bone and oxygen.
Again, there was a time many years ago when to be a “celebrity”
required work, effort, charisma and above all talent, an ability to leave the world hanging on
your every word. Celebrities to me are people like David Bowie, Richard Burton,
Elizabeth Taylor, Mick Jagger, Peter O’Toole, Rod Stewart, Marilyn Monroe, Keith
Richards, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, George Best, Brian Clough, I could go on
and on but you get the idea. These people were genuinely recognised as having a
gift, as being the best in their field. I’ll concede that we do still have some
people in our society who are very worthy of being looked up to like this – the
sad loss this week of Rik Mayall, a man I consider to be a comedy genius, and
the many touching and heartfelt tributes he received from across society, shows
that people are still capable of recognising real talent when they see it. But
be honest, why should anyone care who one of those grinning mannequins from One
Direction or a reserve team player from Chelsea or Man United is “bonking”? Surely,
even as people in the pay of their PR’s to print this stuff, you must find this
sort of stuff gets a bit boring after a while?
This, then, is why you can find the remains of your free
paper included in this envelope. Again, let me say that I consider myself to be
a proud Brit. But the Britain that I love is the one that celebrates difference
(be it racial, sexual or personality based) in people, that pulls together when
it’s threatened rather than turning on each other, that supports the least able
in its society to help them make a living in this world rather than turning a
blind eye to their suffering, that knows that when everyone is working in the
same direction that we really can create something to be proud of in this
country of ours. And none of these seem to be considered as worthy values in
the Sun’s Britain unfortunately. All I can say is that if this mixture of ill-informed racism, hollow chest-beating factionism and brain-dead tittle-tattle really does represent the views of "The Man In The Street" then I can only end by quoting the late Sid Vicious - "I've met the man in the street. And he's a c**t."
Still, if you want a small crumb of comfort, at least you’re
nowhere near as evil as the Daily Mail is. But I wouldn’t say that’s anything
to be proud of.
Yours faithfully,
A patriotic Brit and non-Sun reader
