Juxtaposition is a terrible thing if you’re a newspaper sub-editor – as the front page of this week’s Powys County Times demonstrates.

In the week when David Cameron was pilloried for saying the Queen “purred down the line” at him when he told her Scotland had rejected independence, the County Times ran a photograph of him (relating to another story) over the headline: “‘Sickening and vile abuse’ over phone”.

Oops!

What’s even worse is the lead paragraph of the story itself: “A woman was subjected to a vile campaign of sickening and anonymous abuse from a man she had considered a friend.”

Juxtaposition – putting one story next to another in a way that means it is possible to associate an image from one with a headline from another – is a terrible, and often unintentionally hilarious thing. Reporters (and editors) are warned to beware of it because of the possibility of libel litigation and it behooves Vox Political to point out that no disrespect is intended to the real victim of the abuse detailed in the actual story.

Cameron himself is being made to apologise for his gaff, to Her Majesty.

While he’s at it, he should use the opportunity to apologise for the last four and a half years of his misrule.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

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