What’s that Neil? You as a liberal are going to update us on this move by the No More Page 3 campaign to get the House of Commons involved and an Early Day Motion about stopping this publication being stocked at any of the parliamentary estate locations? No doubt you’ll be as sympathetic as ever to this campaign and not just chortle to yourself…
Oh brain. You slay me.
Anyway here we are. Boobs are still on Page 3 and The Sun don’t seem to be changing their attitude anytime soon. However they have changed their editor so maybe that will give the campaign more impoteus? We shall see as they say. I have actually spent the last half an hour or so surfing the No More Page 3 website (after it took several stabs to load – possibly get a better server?) and despite the obvious pixelation in the banner being my first concern (yes I’m a geek) there are some interesting pieces there but also what I didn’t know is that the campaign has decided to diversify. It now isn’t just about getting Page 3 removed (which so far it has failed spectacularly in) but how also wants a certain type of relationship education and doesn’t like Lego being advertised with soft porn. Sadly the photo they have included on the latter piece is so small no-one who hasn’t seen an original can tell how bad the content is. Anyway…
So the No More Page 3 campaign isn’t against women baring their chests in men’s magazines, just in the news, but just a few weeks ago we saw another campaign against women baring their breasts in these magazines in case people who didn’t like handling said magazines had to handle them if they were employed in shops that sold them. The masses are uprising another boobs being available anywhere.
That isn’t really the story though. The story is obviously how are they doing with this? Well Caroline Lucas’ Early Day Motion has 13 MPs backing it calling for The Sun not to be available around parliament. I can’t get my head around this EDM as if an MP or worker wanted to get a copy then they could still just go and buy one and I’m pretty sure The Sun aren’t going to be crippled by not being available within the parliamentary estate but oh well. Also I don’t get why Miss Lucas and others do not want the Daily Star to be available. Last I saw the Daily Star also had boob (every single time I type boob I say it in my head in the voice of Steve from American Dad!).
This has been a part of my argument for a long time. They want to stop boobs in The Sun because it is an ‘institution’ but in the Daily Star it is fine. Yeah that makes sense. Honest.
However this has (and still is) my biggest issue with the whole campaign. They don’t want government intervention (well they didn’t until recently) and this was all about asking The Sun to change for moral purposes. A big corporation changing on moral purposes even though it would probably cost them millions of pounds in lost sales? Yeah that sounds likely.
Here we go. I’m guessing most people who back the No More Page 3 campaign don’t buy the newspaper. Will they buy it once boobs aren't on Page 3? I am doubtful. Even if some do then will enough people start buying it who did’t before to make up for the loss in sales due to boob disappearing from Page 3? No. No they wouldn’t because if they did then The Sun would have already done it. They don’t put topless women in the newspaper on a jolly. It is because their market research leads them to believe that by doing so they sell more newspapers.
So it boils down to this. Will The Sun sacrifice money for morals?
I have my opinions and I think you all have exactly the same.
So the No More Page 3 campaign continues to roll. As for my opinion on the whole thing. Well personally I don’t like seeing boob in a newspaper. Hence why I don’t buy it (also the whole Hillsborough thing still wrangles) but unless it is against the law they have every right to do what they like. Until they think they’ll make more money from no boob they’ll continue to show boob. That is the way it is. I think that is relatively obvious to anyone but seemingly it is not.
So the No More Page 3 campaign needs to go down the legislation route or they are doomed to fail. Also take on the Daily Star as well. Going after one publication and not the other makes no sense. It never did and it never will.
