Sunifesto Murdoch right-wing vision made explicit

Wee bit careless to present so few ethnic minority faces?

I can't recall seeing quite so detailed, especially from a tabloid, as this before - an all-encompassing manifesto that quite neatly provides the clearest possible evidence of The Sun and thus Murdoch's (as much as he absurdly continues to deny influencing his papers' viewpoints and agenda!) ideological orientation.

The timing is smart - the political parties are yet to publish their manifestoes, and UKIP, Labour, Lib Dems and Tories (the major right-wing/centre-right parties) will all feel some pressure to adhere to some of this classic neo-liberal agenda.

Roy Greenslade has been discussing Murdoch's recent, rather surprising, use of Twitter to make public his previously 'private' (they were clear enough if you read his papers!) views and partisanship:

For Murdoch’s inner circle, such open political expression is a thing of wonder. Before the age of social media, he kept himself firmly in the background, careful not to expose his own public views while actively seeking to sway elections through the editorial endorsements in his many newspapers across the globe.“He made clear to his editors which politicians deserved support and those that didn’t,” said a former News Corporation executive. “But unless it was time for an endorsement, those conversations remained private.”The former executive added: “Now with his Twitter feed, the world can see how he is thinking all the time. Which is unusual for Rupert, who liked to keep his own counsel. It has surprised many of us to see him go so public.”

Its worth reading his article in full. A bit more:

Murdoch watchers see the dual-track emoting of his Twitter feed and the editorial pages of his newspapers as symbiotic. The social media site does not only provide the media magnate a direct channel to vent his opinions – it also acts as a prompt for Murdoch’s editors, they say.
David Folkenflik, who is NPR’s media correspondent and the author of Murdoch’s World: The Last of the Old Media Empires, said that “Twitter has changed the ball-game. Every Murdoch editor around the world will be monitoring that feed very closely – they check it repeatedly – to see whether he’s expressed himself again.”
As the power of newspapers has waned amid the fragmentation of digital discourse, the relationship between Murdoch and his newspapers has arguably turned upside-down. Before the proliferation of other news sites, he used his newspapers to amplify his personal political views; today, with the News Corp empire bigger than ever, he uses his personal Twitter feed to amplify the influence of his newspapers.
As the former News Corp executive put it: “As newspaper endorsements become less and less important, this is one way for him to maintain a high political profile.”
That trend remains visible in the UK, where Murdoch pushed the power of newspaper endorsements to the limit with the Sun’s famous 1992 front page on the day after the Conservative party’s general election victory: “It’s the Sun Wot Won It”. Today, the Sun has to work that much harder to have the same impact – this week it launched the endorsement process for the UK’s May general election, 100 days before the event. It dubbed the paper’s campaign the “Sunifesto” and flagged it as “100 days to save Britain”.

THE SUNIFESTO: ANALYSIS

As to that 'Sunifesto', there are a few especially interesting points to consider: