The sun should come out tomorrow

I have a confession to make: I am a Sun reader.

There, I said it. Those of you who know me are welcome to expunge my number from your phone, un-invite me to your birthday party and have me tarred and feathered, should you so wish.

A moron gets his daily fix

As a student at what claims to be the world’s 33^rd best university, I feel those at the Students’ Union have insulted my intelligence severely by decreeing, based on the decision of 20 students, (there are 35 thousand of us, but 20’s fine) that we are all prohibited from picking up the nation’s best selling and most influential newspaper at the SU shop.

The Sun is fascinating, simply because it is vile. It is the paper that swings general elections, objectifies women and delivers a daily roller-coaster ride of expertly spun news and gossip. I for one feel that inquisitive students should not be denied the right to purchase and study something that is regrettably so influential in British life.

You wouldn’t catch the Telegraph printing this crap

To read the Sun, is not to support the Sun. Daily, I ingest stories penned by top university graduates who cynically coerce millions into despising marginalised social groups by reference to single, hyper-scandalised case studies. I am titillated by privacy invading tales of infidelity, debauchery and drug abuse. I learn who Harry Styles has put his penis in, and how many paedophiles lie in wait around every corner.

Many an issue arrives in which Page Three is the least despicable aspect of the entire publication – and Page Three is absolutely despicable.

Why then, ban the Sun from the Students’ Union purely because of Page Three? Yes, opening a newspaper to be confronted with a barely legal school leaver’s breasts is awful, misogynistic and generally something that should have no place in modern society, but if we are to ban newspapers on the basis of offending our values then why not the Daily Mail for implying that Stephen Gately’s tragic death was evidence that gay men do not deserve civil partnerships? Why not Cosmo for giving out sex tips that portray men as moronic oafs who enjoy things that would make the Marquis de Sade blush? The slope is simply too slippery and, as an institution easily slandered as lefty and elitist, why give easy ammunition to the smear campaign that the Sun will inevitably launch as a last gasp attempt to keep the tits in print?

Concise and to the point.

I sincerely hope that the petition to stop Page Three is successful, and we are forever saved from the misogyny that Page Three fuels, but to prohibit broad minded students from making their own decision when selecting a newspaper is patronising, and as illiberal as the awful paper itself.