[18] Bill Grundy wrote in The Spectator in July 1969 that although it published "fine writers" in Geoffrey Goodman, Nancy Banks-Smith and John Akass among others, it had never overcome the negative impact of its launch at which it still resembled the Herald.

[22] Robert Maxwell, a book publisher and Member of Parliament who was eager to buy a British newspaper, offered to take it off their hands and retain its commitment to the Labour Party but admitted there would be redundancies, especially among the printers.

Rupert Murdoch, meanwhile, had bought the News of the World, a sensationalist Sunday newspaper, the previous year, but the presses in the basement of his building in London's Bouverie Street were unused six days a week.

Bingo was introduced as a marketing tool, and a 2p drop in cover price removed the Daily Star's competitive advantage, opening a new circulation battle which resulted in The Sun neutralising the threat of the new paper.

The coverage "captured the zeitgeist" according to Roy Greenslade, assistant editor at the time (though privately an opponent of the war) but was also "xenophobic, bloody-minded, ruthless, often reckless, black-humoured and ultimately triumphalist".

"There are traitors in our midst", wrote leader writer Ronald Spark on 7 May, accusing commentators on Daily Mirror and The Guardian, plus the BBC's defence correspondent Peter Snow, of "treason" for aspects of their coverage.

The story alleged that comedian Freddie Starr, while staying at the home of a writer and friend of his named Vince McCaffrey and his partner Lea LaSalle[62] in Birchwood, Cheshire, had, after returning from a performance at a nightclub in the early hours, found little to eat in their house.

[64] In his 2001 autobiography Unwrapped, Starr wrote that the incident was a fabrication: "I have never eaten or even nibbled a live hamster, gerbil, guinea pig, mouse, shrew, vole or any other small mammal".

Lord Kilbracken himself criticised The Sun's editorial and the headline of its news story, stating that, while he thought that gay people were more at risk of developing AIDS, it was still wrong to imply that no one else could catch the disease.

[78][80] At the end of the decade, The Sun's coverage of the Hillsborough football stadium disaster, in which 97 people died as a result of their injuries, proved to be, as the paper later admitted, the "most terrible" blunder in its history.

Despite its initial opposition to the closures, until 1997, the newspaper repeatedly called for the implementation of further Thatcherite policies, such as Royal Mail privatisation,[107][verification needed] and social security cutbacks, with leaders such as "Peter Lilley is right, we can't carry on like this".

[116] Blair, who had radically altered his party's image and policies, noting the influence the paper could have over its readers' political thinking, had courted it and Murdoch for some time by granting exclusive interviews and writing columns.

Misjudging public response, The Sun's editor David Yelland demanded to know in a front-page editorial whether Britain was governed by a "gay mafia" of a "closed world of men with a mutual self-interest".

[138] That day at the Labour Party Conference, union leader Tony Woodley responded by ripping up a copy of that edition of The Sun, remarking as he did so in reference to the newspaper's Hillsborough Disaster controversy: "In Liverpool we learnt a long time ago what to do".

[144] On election day (6 May 2010), The Sun urged its readers to vote for David Cameron's "modern and positive" Conservatives to save Britain from "disaster" which the paper thought the country would face if the Labour government was re-elected.

While other British newspapers had not published the photos in deference to the privacy of members of the Royal Family, editorial staff of The Sun claimed it was a move to test Britain's perception of freedom of the press.

[164] A statement was issued on 13 June explaining that Miliband "was promoting England's bid to win the World Cup" although "he understands the anger that is felt towards the Sun over Hillsborough by many people in Merseyside and he is sorry to those who feel offended".

[166] The front page read: "Tulisa's cocaine deal shame"; this story was written by The Sun On Sunday's undercover reporter Mahzer Mahmood, who had previously worked for the News of the World.

Reporting the decision in UK newspaper The Guardian, Lisa O'Carroll wrote: "Wide is the only judge so far to have presided in a case which has seen a conviction of a journalist in relation to allegations of unlawful payments to public officials for stories.

[174] In a separate trial, Sun reporter Nick Parker was cleared on 9 December 2014 of aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office but found guilty of handling a stolen mobile phone belonging to Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh.

As a result of the change in the CPS' policy, charges against several journalists who had made payments to other types of public officials – including civil servants, health workers and prison staff – had been dropped.

Judge Timothy Pontius said in court that France's illegal actions had been part of a "clearly recognised procedure at The Sun", adding that, "There can be no doubt that News International bears some measure of moral responsibility if not legal culpability for the acts of the defendant".

[178] To mark the feature's 40th anniversary, feminist author Germaine Greer wrote an article in The Sun on 18 November 2010 published under the headline: "If I ask my odd-job man what he gets out of page 3, he tells me simply, 'It cheers me up'".

The story prompted a statement from Stokes calling the article the "lowest form of journalism", which dealt with "deeply personal and traumatic events" that had affected his New Zealand-based family more than 30 years ago.

[211] It was alleged in court that Vardy was also The Sun on Sunday's Secret Wag columnist, which is an anonymous gossip column about the private lives of the wives and girlfriends of famous UK footballers which often made disparaging comments about the subjects.

[226] The Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, whose name was also mentioned in the column, described Clarkson's comments as "deeply misogynist and just downright awful and horrible" and warned that "words have consequences".

[228] In a letter to ITV chief executive Carolyn McCall, SNP MP John Nicolson called on the organisation to sack Clarkson from his job on the TV game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.

[232] Peter Herbert, the chair of the Society of Black Lawyers, wrote to the Metropolitan Police requesting an investigation under the Public Order Act 1986 as he believed the column promoted racial hatred.

An article by Byline Times alleged that during Wootton's tenure as Bizarre editor that he instructed male pornographic actors to use equipment to film themselves secretly having sex with men he had spoken to on Facebook.

The hard-left nationalisation and high-tax agenda of the crackpots who have hijacked Labour is nightmarish... Ms Sturgeon's tawdry flirting with Mr Corbyn — for a shot at securing an "IndyRef2020" that polls show a clear majority of Scots oppose — means we cannot endorse the SNP in the general election.