The Horsell's Mouth Politics, pedantry and personal interests

Reproduced by kindest permission of the Murdoch clan. I'm a Sky+HD subscriber so they won't mind.

I did my Master’s dissertation on the effect of The Sun‘s election coverage comparing 1992 with 1997 and having done so I regard the political endorsement, whichever way it falls, of Britain’s biggest-selling daily as a key moment in any election campaign.

As a conclusion of my research, I don’t feel The Sun wields that much power politically, although it would be wrong to say that it holds no sway over its readers at all. Perhaps they don’t blindly listen to its editorials, they aren’t bound by its opinions; but what The Sun chooses to report – and how it chooses to report it – is a big deal.

In 1992, The Sun hammered Neil Kinnock in such a way that rendered it difficult for its readers to vote for him. But he wasn’t PM, and couldn’t do much to harm Rupert Murdoch’s media interests on the way out. Brown can – it will be interesting to see whether James Murdoch tells the paper to go hell-for-leather or whether it will all be quite gentlemanly after all. One suspects that Gordon Brown won’t allow such a slight to go unpunished.

The switching of The Sun yesterday is the clearest possible signal that the paper believes DC is on the way to Downing Street. Given Murdoch Jnr’s closeness with George Osborne, it is also likely that the paper already knows what DC will tell the country next week. Despite what @KerryMP – who believes Twitter will counteract The Sun’s influence (seriously) – and others in Labour may say, it is a devastating blow to them. Since 1974, when Rupert Murdoch took ownership, The Sun has never backed the losing side in a general election.

Whether it is symptom or cause – or even, as I suspect, a bit of both – I can’t imagine that they would want to start now. There is still work for the Conservatives to do – in particular, they are vulnerable economically with George Osborne and in traditional areas such as the NHS. They need to spell out some home truths in a credible and caring way – it would be nice to hear some firmer manifesto content too.

The support of The Sun, always derided by its opponents, makes victory in May that bit more likely.

It’s also important to remember that we are not even in an election campaign – I cannot recall any previous election (even 1987) where The Sun has called its endorsement so early. Clearly they have their own reasons but for Labour the only place to go now is The Telegraph - although it’s difficult to see that paper, even in its more modern guise, switching and alienating the majority of its traditional readers.

PM must be furious – he and the PM have pretty much nowhere to go except YouTube.