Council u-turn over The Sun and Daily Mail boycott

Gloucester City Council had previously said it would not work with the two newspapers as part of its tourism campaign

Council leaders that deemed The Sun and The Daily Mail to be "hate publications" have now changed their minds about boycotting them.

In a bid to be as ethical as possible, Gloucester City Council had said it would not work with the two newspapers as part of its tourism campaign.

The change comes after it now said it believed in freedom of speech.

The boycott also included firms which it felt did not pay adequate tax, such as Amazon and Starbucks.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), references to an ethical approach have since been removed from the final Visit Gloucester Tourism and Destination Marketing Plan 2022 after council leaders were quizzed over the strategy.

Speaking at a council meeting last week, Labour Party Councillor Tree Chambers-Dubus for Moreland asked about the changes: "The tourism and marketing plan for 2022 initially said it would not work with The Sun or the Daily Mail because of their record of publishing hate speech. However, that was then withdrawn from that document.

"Could you tell me where the council draws the line between strong opinion and discriminatory and hate speech?", she added.

In reply, Conservative deputy leader Hannah Norman said everyone should be treated with dignity and should have the right to free speech.

"We are a free society which I think is incredibly important particularly when we see what is going on in other parts of the world," she said.

"And I expect people should be treated with respect and dignity and the words people use should be chosen very carefully.

"But obviously, in regards of publications, so newspapers for example, we all know some have different political persuasions and they can be interpreted in different ways."