“I really don’t know what the fuss about – our headlines simply reflect our commitment to telling the truth,” explains Ferdinand Plenck, Executive Editor of tabloid newspaper The Shite in response to criticism of the tone of some of its recent news coverage. “Rather than assume that our readers are utter morons who need to be sheltered from the truth, we believe in giving it to them straight.” Much of the criticism has focused on the tabloid’s reporting on the England women’s football team’s failure to win the Women’s World Cup final, with the paper featuring the front page headline ‘Shame of a Nation’, over a story condemning the team for having got the nation’s hopes up, only to cruelly dash them. “I think we were quite restrained under the circumstances,” says Plenck. “Damn it – was that pathetic performance what I and millions of other Britons got out of bed early on a Sunday morning to watch? They really should be ashamed of themselves, not even able to beat a bunch of dagos!” The back page headline was even more direct, proclaiming ‘You Were Fucking Shit!’ in bold letters, with sub-headers claiming that the entire nation now hated every member of the women’s team. “I’m sorry if some liberal types out there are upset, but all we are doing it saying what our readers really think,” opines Plenck. “I know that we’re meant to say ‘Oh bad luck, but well done for getting to the final’ and describing them all as heroines and praise them for being ‘plucky’, but, in truth, most of us are well pissed off with them. I know it wasn’t a real world cup, played by blokes, but the fact is that they’re still a bunch of losers and someone needs to have the courage to say it as it is!”

The controversy generated by the paper’s coverage of the Women’s World Cup is simply the latest to break since Plenck took over the editorship earlier this year, with the tabloid still facing investigations over some of its political reporting. In particular, it’s story about Labour London Mayor Sadiq Khan, headlined ‘The Wog Who is Ruining London’, caused outrage when it was published. But again, Plenck has defended the headline, claiming that it merely reflects what its readership is actually thinking. “Look, every right-wing news outlet constantly criticises Khan, but always feel the need to couch it in terms of his politics, but we all know what they are really thinking,” he says. “The real issue is that he’s not white and he’s a Muslim – let’s face it, if he was white and Christian, he’d be exactly the sort of middle class, professional promoting centrist policies that they’d love. But the fact is that, for many people in this country, the main criteria they use for judging others are race and religion.” Plenck points out that Khan’s predecessor, utterly discredited and disgraced former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, didn’t attract any of the sort of vituperative criticism that the current incumbent does, despite having demonstrably been an utter tosser in the job. “He may have been a fat, immoral, lazy womanising bastard, but he was white,” points out the newspaper editor. “It’s the only explanation for the fact that not only did people vote for him in the first place, but then re-elected him as mayor for a second term – and then supported him as Prime Minister.”

Plenck contends that he and The Shite should be attracting not opprobrium, but praise for being so frank about the UK’s widespread racism. “Why should be pretend to be surprised by the fact that many people hate the Mayor of London because he isn’t white? I mean, just look at all the hatred being expressed for asylum seekers – most specifically the non white ones,” he asks. “Damn it, Rishi Sunak, the current Prime Minister knows all about it – he knew that he had to get the MPs nomination as Tory party leader unopposed, otherwise he’d have to go to vote of the membership, who would reject anyone who isn’t white, regardless of how useless they were. After all, they’d previously voted for Liz Truss instead of him, despite the fact that she was clearly a swivel-eyed loon. But a white swivel-eyed loon.”

Plenck’s commitment to speaking the truth on behalf of his readership extends beyond misogyny, sport, politics and racism, with a recent series of articles focusing on LGBTQ+ issues, opening with a look at the gay community headlined ‘They Just Want to Bum Our Kids’. “Look, I’m well aware that homosexuals and paedophiles aren’t the same, but we’re just reflecting what our readership thinks: that the whole lot of them – homos, trannies, lezzas and all the other weirdos – are just a bunch of perverts,” declares Plenck. “It’s difficult not to sympathise – I mean, blokes dressing up as ugly women and reading stories to kids, that’s not normal, is it?” The series culminated with an editorial opining that men who wanted to be women should simply be castrated. “If they don’t want the privilege of having a penis, then it is simple enough to take it away,” muses Plenck, “Plus, it will stop them bumming any kids.”

But in a recent interview with broadsheet the Sunday Bystander, privately educated Oxford graduate Plenck conceded that whilst his mission was to provide his paper’s readership with an authentic voice, he didn’t necessarily sympathise with them. “While they are perfectly entitled to have their views properly and honestly represented, the fact is that they are extremely stupid,” he explained. “They are, on the whole, ill educated lower middle class types in jobs which, at best, might be described as semi-professional. Their views are informed by bigotry and ignorance.” He added that they certainly weren’t the sort of people that he’d choose to socialise with. “Would I have one of them in my house? Obviously not,” he claimed. “Would I want one marrying my daughter? Certainly not – I’d rather she married a black man. Just so long as he had a degree, owned his own home and had a white collar profession.” When it was put to him that the views he was expressing in the interview were likely to cause a backlash against his paper from its readership, he simply shrugged. “Look, they are never going to read this, are they? They’re far too stupid to be reading a broadsheet,” Plenck explained. “Especially one that doesn’t reinforce their own prejudices with inflammatory and reactionary headlines.”