It's The Sun Wot Won It

"It's The Sun Wot Won It" is a famous headline that appeared on the front-page of The Sun on Saturday 11 April 1992, and has since become a political catch phrase in the United Kingdom.[1]

Origin

The headline referred to The Sun's contribution to the unexpected Conservative victory in the 1992 general election.[2] What influence the newspaper had on voters in the narrow Conservative victory is unclear, but in the leading up to polling day, the newspaper led a campaign against the Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock, which culminated in the election day headline, "If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights". This was to deter voters from electing Labour, as opinion polls during the three years leading up to the election had mostly predicted that it would end in a hung parliament or a narrow Labour majority. The Sun had backed the Conservative Party for well over a decade by this stage.

Even some Tory MPs acknowledged that The Sun contributed to their election triumph. Kinnock himself blamed The Sun for his failure to win the election, though he also admitted that he had been half expecting to lose the election even before the article was published.[3]

Later use

Variations of the headline are frequently used in the UK media during elections. The phrase was used again by many political commentators after the 1997 general election when The Sun switched sides and supported Labour's new leader Tony Blair, who won the election by a landslide. However, unlike in 1992, opinion polls thoughout the inter-election period had consistently suggested such a result was likely.

In 2004, it was said to be The Guardian "wot lost it" for John Kerry in the US presidential election, after the newspaper started a letter writing campaign to voters in Ohio urging them to vote for Kerry; the state went for George W. Bush.[4] More recently in the 2008 London Mayoral election, it was supposedly the Evening Standard 'wot won it' for Boris Johnson.[5] In 2008, The Sun used a variation of the headline for a debate at the Oxford Union over the Page Three girl claiming 'It's Sun's girls wot won it'.[6][7]

On 6 May 2010, an altered version of the anti-Kinnock headline appeared in the centre pages of The Sun featuring Labour prime minister Gordon Brown and the words "If Brown wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights" next to an image of Brown's head in a lightbulb. The Sun had announced its backing for the Tory opposition (led by David Cameron) the previous year.[8] The election saw the Conservatives gain the most seats but fall short of an overall majority, needing to agree a coalition with the Liberal Democrats in order to form a majority government.[9]

The headline "will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights" was paraphrased during the News International phone hacking scandal to refer to the closure of the News of the World.[10]

References

  1. ^ (pdf) Was it the Sun wot won it again? The influence of newspapers in the 1997 election campaign. Centre for Research into Elections and Social Trends. September 1999. http://www.crest.ox.ac.uk/papers/p75.pdf. Retrieved 4 May 2008. 
  2. ^ Douglas, Torin (14 September 2004). "Forty years of The Sun". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3654446.stm. Retrieved 4 May 2008. 
  3. ^ Douglas, Torin (21 April 2005). "Could it be the Sun wot wins it again?". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4470557.stm. Retrieved 4 May 2008. 
  4. ^ Ian Burrell (8 November 2004). "Lady Antonia of Clark County". London: The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/lady-antonia-of-clark-county-532409.html. Retrieved 4 May 2008. 
  5. ^ Tim Luckhurst (4 May 2008). "So was it the 'Standard' wot won it?". London: The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/so-was-it-the-standard-wot-won-it-or-just-a-sign-of-the-times-820745.html. Retrieved 4 May 2008. 
  6. ^ "It's Sun's girls wot won it". The Sun. 25 April 2008. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1088577.ece. Retrieved 4 May 2008. 
  7. ^ Purves, Libby (30 April 2008). "The Sun shines bright at the Oxford Union's Page 3 girl debate". Times Online (London). http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article3839843.ece. Retrieved 4 May 2008. 
  8. ^ Naughton, Phillipe (30 September 2009). "Labour fails to conceal its anger after The Sun switches to support Conservatives". Times Online. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6855370.ece. Retrieved 16 July 2011. 
  9. ^ Alberici, Emma (22 May 2010). "Diary". The Spectator. http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/page_17/6049943/part_3/diary.thtml. Retrieved 16 July 2011. 
  10. ^ Wells, Matt (15 July 2011). "Les Hinton sacrificed, but the worst is yet to come for News Corp". The Guardian (Guardian Media Group). http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/15/les-hinton-news-corp. Retrieved 19 July 2011.