New Sun editor Rebekah Wade may be the first woman to hold the post, but don't expect the bastion of working-class laddism to change its spots, writes Emmet Oliver
Phwoar! Top totty comes to the currant bun. Ice maiden set to freeze Wapping. Flame-haired stunner to shine on soaraway Sun. Becky becomes the Sun queen. Hacks tremble as Becky wades in. These are just some of the headlines Sun sub-editors might have hoisted this week about their new boss, 34-year-old Rebekah Wade. But bearing in mind her fearsome reputation, they wisely refrained.
Wade, who has worked in the ruthless world of the British tabloids for more than 15 years, likes to inject some fun into her newspapers, but rarely enjoys fun at her own expense.
She is the youngest editor of a British national newspaper and the first woman to edit what is probably the last and greatest bastion of working class British laddism, the Sun newspaper (affectionately known as the Currant Bun).
The Sun remains the biggest brand in British newspapers and one of the biggest titles in the world. With a daily circulation of 3.4 million, its influence is massive. The sight of an unfavourable front page can make British prime ministers shudder in their boots, never mind the various celebrities the Sun regularly mugs.
Its front page, and even its often-derided, The Sun Says editorial slot, are probably two of the most influential pieces of journalism which appear each day in Britain, and courtesy of the Irish Sun it appears in Ireland too.
The paper - in its uniquely spikey and two fingered fashion - has earned itself a hugely influential role in British social and political life. Even if the chattering classes regularly throw their hands up in horror at its latest antics, the fact that the Sun is discussed at dinner parties in leafy Hampstead shows how broad its influence is.
Early indications are that Wade will break up the cosy relationship Tony Blair has enjoyed with the paper for the last few years. Blair, by beseeching proprietor Rupert Murdoch, has had the Sun in his corner for the last five years.
But Wade, regarded as a Tory by most colleagues, is unlikely to continue the relationship. She is believed to be particularly loathing of Cherie Blair, even though she used to be a dinner guest of the Blairs in her News of the World days.
Why should the Blairs care? For one simple reason. The paper, despite competition from all comers, remains the bible of the British working class - or the C2s to borrow the marketer's language.
The Sun defined the C2s back in the 1980s as people who watched ITV, not BBC, who did not care about international affairs and who drank lager and holidayed in Benidorm. A former editor of the Sun, Kelvin McKenzie described the male Sun reader slightly more directly. "He's the bloke you see in the pub - a right old fascist.".
Wade, who tapped into the core values of this group as editor of News of the World for the last few years, is regarded by some as a female version of Kelvin McKenzie, whose manic personality essentially re-invented the title in the 1980s and produced probably the paper's most infamous headline, Gotcha!, during the Falklands War.
Wade, while much smoother around the edges and a better networker than McKenzie, appears to have that most precious commodity in a tabloid editor, an ability to give the readers what they want, in spades.
This may be surprising for someone who attended France's most elite university - the Sorbonne - but Wade believes successful tabloid journalism always involves a sort of intelligent populism, an ability to read the mood of Essex man and his girlfriend Sharon.
Some female journalists hoped - somewhat naively - that Wade would re-shape the Sun, abolish Page 3 and rid the paper of its sexist and sometimes loutish image. But Wade is not going to bite the Murdochian hand.
On her first day, she wore a Page 3 badge on her lapel and included a topless picture of a young woman ironically called Rebekah, from guess where . . . Wapping, where the Sun is produced.
While she is known to be somewhat embarrassed by the Sun's almost Benny Hill style fascination with nubile female flesh, she seems to support the idea of Page 3 remaining an integral part of the Sun package.
Extremely risqué papers, such as the Sunday Sport, are always prepared to drag the market lower, and no doubt that publication would gloat endlessly if the Sun decided to clean up its act and abolish this peculiarly British institution.
Wade is less concerned about the Sun's juvenility than its apparent lack of bite, in terms of getting big scoops and setting the national agenda.
She e-mailed staff this week telling them she wanted scoops and more scoops. She said she worked long hours and at weekends as a young reporter and she expected staff to do the same for her. If not, you're out, she told them bluntly.
As editor of the News of the World, Wade certainly knew how to land a big story, even if she landed herself in trouble at the same time.
Working with the investigative reporter, Mazir Mahmood, whose job is to dress up as a sheikh, she presided over a string of exclusives. They usually came after elaborate sting operations with Mahmood fooling unsuspecting celebrities, including Sophie Rhys Jones, into divulging embarrassing details.
While broadsheet rivals reacted with horror at the mis-representations involved, Wade built up a reputation for producing front page splashes that left other papers, including the World's deadly rival the Sunday Mirror, in the shade.
However, when Wade decided to add moral indignation to the mix, things threatened to get out of hand. The appalling murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne two years ago by a paedophile prompted Wade to start a "name and shame" campaign against child abusers.
Each week another battery of grainy photographs were wheeled out and names put to them. The police, civil rights groups and politicians were appalled, but as ever it meant heaps of publicity for the World and Wade. However, this somewhat questionable campaign was relentlessly attacked as Wade refused to come out publicly and stand over it.
While some blamed her campaign for inciting mobs to burn paediatricians out of their homes, rather than paedophiles, Rupert Murdoch was apparently impressed at her ability to brazen it out.
She is no doubt going to have to call on those skills again. The Sun is always in trouble. Its lives to push out the boundaries of taste and decency. A bit like another institution with its roots in south London - Millwall football club - its message to its detractors is: "Everyone hates us and we don't care".
Born in May 1968 and raised in Cheshire, Wade is a fluent French speaker. She got her start with another legend of the tabloid world, Eddie Shah, who took on the print unions in the 1980s with his Post and Today titles. While she is associated with big brash newspapers, she rarely gives interviews and is uncomfortable in the limelight.
Wade has worked, not always successfully, with some of the most prominent characters in British tabloids, including the Mirror editor Piers Morgan. Right from the early part of her career, she had no fears about telling more established names what they were doing wrong. Even her husband Ross Kemp, who played the quintessential hardman in EastEnders, is put in the shade in her company.
Her personal preference for showbiz stories is likely to be reflected in the paper. She believes her predecessor David Yelland had taken the fun out of the Sun and she aims to restore that cheeky 1980s sensibility.
Wade once prided herself on being one of the few prominent women in a senior post in British journalism (she even produced academic reports on the under-representation of women in the media), but don't expect that to be the prevailing theme of her editorship. While Wade is firmly of the view that tabloids must do more to reach out to female readers, the Sun this week appeared to be breaking little new ground in that area.
This week it has been trying to entertain its 3.4 million readers with its "Bootie Week" feature, showing topless Nicola, 20, from Croydon.