What the softening of the Sun says about Britain

ON ROLLS ofhiv microfilm, in the archives of the British Library, lie the remnants of a lost civilisation. Twenty years ago, in March 2004, the was Britain’s bestselling newspaper, shifting 3m copies a day. It was also bleak, bigoted and cruel. Europeans with and tuberculosis would swamp British hospitals, one front page from that month warned. An item on gay characters on “The Archers”, a radio drama, satirised the theme tune: “Bumti-bumti-bumti-bum.” Women were in turn “tarts”, “hussies”, “mingers” or “crumpet”. On and on it went.Today the is still staunchly conservative, agitated by soft judges and high levels of migration. But its pages are lighter, brighter and gentler. Gone are the topless “page 3” models, the paparazzi shots outside nightclubs and the humiliating undercover stings. It runs campaigns on the menopause and for disabled children; it has devoted front pages to women’s football. Many of the ’s critics, its editor, Victoria Newton, recently complained, cannot have read it in decades.