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Richard Dawkins calls The Sun 'disgusting' over negative front page featuring Jeremy Corbyn

The paper attacked the Labour leader over 'nodding' at the Cenotaph

Chris Mandle
Tuesday 10 November 2015 11:28 GMT
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Richard Dawkins has criticised The Sun for its extensive negative coverage of Jeremy Corbyn at the Remembrance day ceremony.

The Labour Leader made the front page of the tabloid with the headline “Nod In My Name”, where he was slammed for 'nodding' at the Cenotaph rather than giving a bow.

He was also the focus of a spread (titled “Bow your head in shame”) and an editorial (“War and peacenik”) in the paper.

Corbyn was also criticised by the Daily Mail for appearing to “freeze, rather than offer the ritual gesture of submission and salutation”, though the paper’s Robert Hardman attributed this to nerves and acknowledged his “solemnity” on the day.

After someone tweeted Dawkins to point out that Corbyn bowed, applauded veterans and lay a wreath, he hit out at the Murdoch-owned paper, criticising them for their anti-Corbyn agenda.

“What a disgusting paper The Sun is. What kind of person buys is [sic]? Is it - could it be? - even worse than the Mail?”

In a later tweet, he suggested the Sun was “read by people who can barely read at all” and said he was proud to despise the title - though this has since been deleted.

‘Corbynmania’ has seen the politician become a divisive figure to many, but Dawkins has spoken out about him in the past, suggesting disliking him isn’t enough to attack him in the press.

“We may not like Jeremy Corbyn,” he said in September. “But dislike is no excuse for telling lies about what a man says.

"If the truth damns him, isn’t that enough?”

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