When, in 1992, the most popular daily newspaper in Britain boasted: “It was The Sun wot won it” after Neil Kinnock snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and John Major was returned to Number 10, that election defeat [and those words] seared themselves on the Labour Party hierarchy. Which was why Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell spent so much time persuading Rupert Murdoch to back their New Labour project. Now that The Sun has come out this morning and, under the headline Labour’s Lost It, announced it will back David Cameron’s Conservatives at the next general election, there was much scratching of heads in the leader’s den. It took the sheen off his speech, they felt. But why should they worry? Not all Sun readers vote Tory [or even vote at all] and they certainly put their cross in a particular place because that is what Rupert Murdoch and Trevor Kavanagh tell them to do. And why are those around Gordon surprised? It was clear to most of us that The Sun was backing Tony Blair, not the Labour Party or the Labour government. Rupert liked Tony not so much for what he was but for what he wasn’t. Whicvh was Labour or a socialist…
