The Daily Mail has told its critics to “get a life”, despite being reported to IPSO over its “legs-it” front page.
Sarah Vine’s column was sold on the front of the first edition of the Mail with the headline “Never mind Brexit, who won Legs-it!”, alongside a picture of Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon.
Amelia Womack, deputy leader of the Green Party, told the Independent she had reported the Mail to the independent press regulator, claiming the newspaper had broken Clause 12 of the code which says editors must “avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual’s race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability”.
Womack described the treatment of the prime minister and Scottish first minister as “entirely irrelevant and incredibly disrespectful”.
She added: “This headline and the further derogatory comments inside the paper would not have even been considered, let alone published, if the two politicians in question had been men.”
At the time of writing, IPSO said it had received around 900 complaints and counting about the front page.
But both the Mail and Sarah Vine have stood by their coverage, with the newspaper telling those unhappy with the front page and story to “get a life”:
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s World At One, Vine said that she thought people were having a “sense of humour failure”, adding “we’re a tabloid newspaper, that’s what we do”.
She claimed the media writes just as much about how male politicians look, pointing to coverage of former chancellor George Osborne’s hair and comments made about her own husband, Michael Gove.
Vine said she thought there was something of a “Pavlovian response” to the whole thing because it was the Mail, claiming that if the same headline had run in Private Eye, “no one would bat an eyelid”.
She added: “I really am perfectly happy to stand by what I wrote. I wasn’t horrid about them.”
The Mail’s front page prompted condemnation from MPs - including Jeremy Corbyn, Harriet Harman, Yvette Cooper, Ed Miliband - as well a a slew of others.
The PM’s spokesman had this comment to make on the issue...
Although apparently May did have this to say...