The Sun has baffled social media users with a Thursday edition front page that appears to be attempting to support Boris Johnson via a pie-chart made with a real pork pie, and the pun headline that Johnson is “crust” ahead.
The pie is divided into three sections, labelled “End of Covid rules”, “Partygate inquiry” and “Revolting MPs”. The largest portion of the pie – presumably the positive news in the paper’s view that Covid restrictions in England are ending – has an arrow pointing to some mustard saying “Cutting the mustard”. On the other side a different label suggests that the prime minister is still “in a pickle”.
As one observer noted, that’s not really how pie charts work.
This is not how pie charts work pic.twitter.com/4vtIC0Zjp6
— Dr Alice Lilly (@aliceolilly) January 20, 2022
And as another noted, it’s not really clear how they got there anyway.
Bold of the Sun to let a guy who's been awake and doing speed for four days straight put the front page together pic.twitter.com/zOk3jC7PTe
— Eddie Robson (@EddieRobson) January 20, 2022
Some credited it to the famous “boffins” that the tabloid often refers to in any story featuring scientists.
The Sun’s ‘boffins’. I have in mind a whole floor of people in white lab coats and big glasses, working furiously to come up with exactly the right depiction of all news events for the front page.
— Simon Kirchin (@KirchinSimon) January 20, 2022
Several people on social media linked the bizarre front page to the fact that the newspaper’s deputy editor, James Slack, is himself implicated in the “partygate” scandal, having been forced to issue an apology for a Downing Street party held in his honour during Covid restrictions as he left his role as Johnson’s head of communications.
Others likened it to something out of the Chris Morris television news satire, Brass Eye, in particular one scene where Morris stands in front of a similarly bizarre chart.
— David Jenkins (@daveyjenkins) January 20, 2022
The reported attempt to oust the prime minister by a group of Tory MPs who had been elected in 2019 in the “red wall” seats has been named the “pork pie plot” by supporters of Johnson. Ostensibly, it refers to the fact that Alicia Kearns is one of the more prominent figures, and she is the MP for Rutland and Melton, which includes Melton Mowbray where the famous pork pies are made. However, some observers have noted that it carries more than a whiff of snobbery about it, looking down on newly elected Conservative MPs from the north of England.
A team of experts try to determine the play on words that underpins the front page of The Sun. pic.twitter.com/3kvS0OtP7r
— Ern Politics for Malley (@ernest_malley) January 20, 2022
The Sun’s front page may warrant further investigation by the Twitter account Graph Crimes, which regularly exposes people making bizarre claims via charts on social media. Or possibly it is just a thankless task to try to analyse it at all.
It's impossible to satirise the Sun's front page
— Mathew (@MatHempell) January 20, 2022
• This article was amended on 21 January 2022. The image of Chris Morris is taken from Brass Eye, not The Day Today as an earlier version said.
