There's one grain of truth in this stunt

INTERNATIONAL NEWS in this elements one grain of truth stunt... WRITING in 'The Guardian's' Miscellany column last Friday Eric Silver noted that the 'Sun' was shining in Fleet St.

He wrote: 'Most of the changes in Fleet St in 1971 can be laid at the door of the "Sun" whose flare for giving a new gloss to all the old stunts has raised its circulation over 2 million and into the black.' The 'old stunts' comprise a variety of ingredients from sexy nudes to the agony column. And the whole thing is based on a down-your-way brash earthiness designed to entice primarily working-class readers between the covers.

But behind this persistent policy lurk the kind of ruthless cut-throat_ politics which have made the 'Sun' and its proprietors what they are.

Now and again this hard truth spills out onto the newsprint.

For instance the choice of Edward Heath as the 'Sun's' man of the year-a man who stands for the political and class forces despised by the majority of workers.

There was one grain of truth in political editor Anthony Shrimsley's eulogy and that appeared in the last three paragraphs.

'There were no cheers from the unemployed, no cheers from the people hit by rising prices. 1971 was the year of the man withoat a job.

'But the man who made that year more than anyone else was Edward Heath?

How true.

Unemployment, wrote Shrimsley, was the worst since the 1930s.

'That too was Edward Heath's achievement. The achievement of a man who decided that a new Britain could be born only through the pain of harsh reality.' Before those who had suffered this harsh, reality nose-dived the circulation by abandoning the •Freedom of the Press' It's not for the workers paper, the 'Sun' obviously thought it had better say something to placate them.

We read that after deliberately creating a million unemployed, big-hearted Heath 'found he had been too harsh'.

'He began the year with policies which precipiated the collapse of Rolls-Royce and Upper Clyde Shipbuilders.

"Before he was over, he was trying to save the RB211 engine and subsidizing jobs by inflating the spending programmes of the nationalized industries.

'Edward Heath was the man who showed he was capable of learning trom his mistakes.

Piffle. Edward Heath was MURNING CLOUD man who ruthlessly pursued the Tories' callous anti-working class policies from the first minute he stepped into Downing St. If he moved to inflate anything it was profits.

Yet still the 'Sun' can say that 1971 was the year that Heath turned his image from that of the 'born loser into that of Ted, the astonishing winner'.

If the working class think of Heath as a winner I'll eat my biro.

But for the real flavour of 1972 in Tory press circles, over to Anne Edwards of the 'Sunday Express'.

'Let us have no more whining Irish voices saying how poor and downtrodden they are and how brutally the army treat them.

'Let's have a break from demos, shouting and snarling up trafic protestin lands about something in far [Bangla Desh?] which the British government is powerless [?] to • do anything about.' and a special message for ou ctor readers 'Let's see less of actors giving us their views on everything under the sun since all they are good for is portraying a character someone else has created.' What did Shakespeare say about 'all the world's a stage'?