It's The Sun Wot Won It

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"It's The Sun Wot Won It" is a famous headline that appeared on the front-page of The Sun on Saturday 11 April 1992, and has since become a political catch phrase in the United Kingdom.^[1]

[edit] Origin

The headline referred to The Sun's contribution to the unexpected Conservative victory in the 1992 general election.^[2] What influence the newspaper had on voters in the narrow Conservative victory is unclear, but in the leading up to polling day, the newspaper led a campaign against the Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock which culminated in the election day headline, "If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights". This was due to the fact that Labour had topped the opinion polls for most of the three years leading up to the election and as the election loomed it was looking likely that Britain would have a Labour government with Kinnock as prime minister. Even some Tory MPs acknowledged that The Sun contributed to their election triumph.^[3]

[edit] Later use

Variations of the headline are frequently used in the UK media during elections. The phrase was used again by many political commentators after the 1997 general election when The Sun supported Tony Blair. In 2004, it was said to be The Guardian "wot lost it" for John Kerry in the presidential election, after the newspaper started a letter writing campaign to voters in Ohio urging them to vote for Kerry; the state went for George W. Bush.^[4] More recently in the 2008 London Mayoral election, it was supposedly the Evening Standard 'wot won it' for Boris Johnson.^[5] In 2008, The Sun used a variation of the headline for a debate at the Oxford Union over the Page Three girl claiming 'It's Sun's girls wot won it'.^[6][7]

[edit] References