Labour, Tories and The Sun

In terms of timing, you can't fault them. As Brown sat back in his chair, pleased to have made it through a party conference without an overt challenge to his leadership, The Sun turns round and tells him to go fuck himself. Yep, The Sun is again a Tory paper.

This happening is not really surprising; the only thing that mildly surprises me is that it took so long to happen. Yet despite the inevitability of this announcement, I would imagine that the Tories are this morning celebrating winning over such a popular newspaper, whilst Labour are readying themselves for whatever damage this particular publication chooses to inflict. I'd throw in a note of caution here, though. The Sun is good at self-promotion, and The Sun is great at bigging up its own influence. However, The Sun coming into the Tory camp doesn't so much guarantee a Tory victory as confirm that one is likely.

See, given half a chance The Sun will always make claims like "It's The Sun Wot Won It". That doesn't make the claim true. Sure, The Sun may be able to sway the views of a small minority of people, but the paper really isn't the driver of public opinion that it makes itself out to be. In fact, it tends to sense the way public opinion is going, and follow that.

This decision isn't one of political principle, and it doesn't reflect the strengths or the weaknesses in the cases of the Labour Party and the Tories. It simply shows that The Sun wants to be on the winning side and that, in its judgement, the winning side is headed by the Boy Cameron rather than the Grey Ghoul Gordon.