It is hard not to be cynical about the proposal to shut down the News of the World in the face of the baying of the crowd. Though there is some temptation to feel some sense of schadenfreude that the paper which has most tryed to whip up a lynch-mob mentatlity is hoist on its own petard, it still seems to me that it is merely an audacious business move that will see a new Sun on Sunday being produced. Thus, there will still be a Murdoch produced tabloid on Sundays but one which is produced at far lower cost than the News of the World as the people who have hitherto been producing that paper are sacrificied.

I saw that the Sun’s own sub-editors had gone out on strike in sympathy with their News of the World colleagues. Those sub editors are the ones who produce the actual headlines which grace the articles written by reporters. As such they are some of the most skilled wordsmiths in the business and a group of people I’ve always admired.

Talking of headlines, the BBC’s front news page caught my attention yesterday with the headline, “Threat of Virgin Strike is Lifted.” I have to admit a sense of great relief – the last thing that we want is Our Lady feeling she needs to be out on a picket line. (Though I wouldn’t put is past her – I rather fancy the odd demo might be right up her street – she does a good line in protest songs). As it turned out, the headline referred to a story about Virgin Atlantic.

Well, how was I to know?