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Sun columnist Katie Hopkins has remained curiously silent on the subject of the migration crisis for a second day running.
The outspoken mother-of-three made a name for herself at the newspaper after penning a resolutely unsympathetic column entitled ‘Rescue boats? I’d use gunships to stop migrants’.
The piece also invited the media to show her “bodies floating in the water”, as she maintained: “I still don’t care.”
Katie Hopkins's column in The Sun
The Sun, which did not act on a petition numbering almost 315,000 signatures which called for Hopkins to be sacked and continued to promote the column in the wake of the outrage, is among several tabloid newspapers which have apparently performed an abrupt U-turn in light of the recent events surrounding the crisis.
On Thursday it published tragic photographs of the lifeless body of “tragic tot” three-year-old Aylan Kurdi being carried from a Turkish beach after the vessel he was traveling in sank, and on Friday it launched a Crisis Campaign ‘For Aylan’.
However Hopkins, who was questioned by police over allegations of incitement of racial hatred believed to be related to the column and was even publicly slammed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for using language comparable to the Nazi media, has remained unnaturally silent on the matter, despite a growing backlash.
Her column in Friday’s newspaper muses on Jeremy Corbyn “I would have an affair with him”, Kim Kardashian’s “pendulous breasts” and the body shaming of Cheryl Fernandez-Versini.
An image that shook the world: A Turkish gendarmerie soldier moves the body of Aylan Kurdi
Aylan Kurdi (left) and his older brother Galip (right), who also perished in the sea
There was no mention of those “cockroaches”, “vagrants” and “aggressive young men… spreading like norovirus” she wrote so passionately about in April. Nor has she repeated her protestations: “No, I don’t care. Show me pictures of coffins, show me bodies floating in the water, play violins and show me skinny people looking sad."
Social media users appear unconvinced about the newspaper’s new line – and questioned where Hopkins fits into its new stance.
Tim Ireland wondered: “If The Sun had really changed their position on humanity generally and refugees specifically, Kate Hopkins would be out of a job.”
On Thursday the publication, under the returned leadership of Rebekah Brooks and former Daily Telegraph editor Tony Gallagher, was described as “hollow and hypocritical” for its change in direction, having previously been accused of “demonising and dehumanising refugees and migrants.”
Incidentally, such is the wave of public opinion against Hopkins that a new petition has been launched entitled ‘Swap Kate [sic] Hopkins for 50,000 refugees.”
As of Friday morning it had secured nearly 800 signatures.
She told the Press Association: "There's some things about that column, there are some words which in hindsight you'd probably look to pull out of there.
"But I think overall my message isn't about the idea that we want to see migrants and people suffering, it's an idea that we need to find solutions to problems."