It won't be The Sun wot wins it for Dave

Ever since the 1992 election and the claim that "it was The Sun wot won it" for John Major's Tories, a legend has grown up around the Rupert Murdoch-owned red-top and its perceived level of political influence.

In my view, its election day splash on that occasion (pictured left) was probably the single most disgraceful piece of journalism of the last 30 years. So far as I could make out, the only people who had actually said they were going to "leave Britain" if Kinnock won were Andrew Lloyd Webber and Phil Collins, neither of whom would have been any great loss and one of whom later emigrated anyway.

But in what turned out to be a very tight election race that was ultimately decided by a few hundred voters in a dozen or so marginal seats, I would concede that the Sun's relentless rubbishing of Kinnock probably did have an effect.

Now, with another tight race in prospect in 2009/10, there has been much recent comment over the Sun's apparent hostility towards David Cameron, notably from Mike Smithson, whose PoliticalBetting.com is currently the top political blog in my view, and BBC pol ed Nick Robinson.

Both Nick and Mike speculate that the paper has turned decisively against the young Tory leader following his decision to vote for an inquiry into the War in Iraq and his "tough love" speech of last week, citing as evidence this piece in Saturday's paper by Deputy Political Editor Andrew Porter.

But should Cameron be worried? Well, it is certainly the case that, back in the 1970s, The Sun played a big part in bringing its mainly working-class readership on board the Thatcher bandwagon, and as I have already said, its demonisation of Kinnock almost certainly swung a few votes in '92.

I would go further and say that its subsequent decision to back Labour in 1997 - having previously regarded the party as totally unfit to govern - did send out an important subliminal message to the wider electorate about the extent to which the party had changed.

But would a similar decision to back Cameron now send out the same message about the Tories? Probably quite the reverse.

The Sun's recent attacks on Dave have come from the right, lambasting him for failing to support "Our Boys" and for what they see as a "soft" approach to law and order. As everybody in politics knows, this is just exactly where Cameron wants to be attacked from.

It follows, to my mind, that Cameron ultimately has more to gain from not obtaining The Sun's endorsement at the next General Election than from getting Rupert's thumbs-up.

What really made The Sun a great newspaper in its own way was the political culture which spawned it, which gave it ample opportunities for the kind of dragon-slaying that was its forte.

In the 70s it railed against union power, to great and ultimately decisive effect. In the 1980s it was "loony lefties" (including, it should not be forgotten, supporters of gay rights). In the 1990s, it was Europe.

Now, in a political culture in which everyone is falling over eachother in a mad rush for the centre-ground, there is less need or demand for that style of confrontational political journalism.

In short, The Sun has become a newspaper just like any other. Influential, yes - no paper with its number of readers could fail to be. But a maker or breaker of governments and oppositions no longer.

More on Martin

Following on from last Thursday's post, a fuller analysis of Michael Martin's record as Speaker, and the reasons why he has never managed to become a national treasure like Betty, can be heard in my Week in Politics Podcast, available HERE.

Brown coronation: what's changed, exactly?

The BBC doesn't normally do speculative leadership stories, being content to leave that sort of thing to the written press, so Political Editor Nick Robinson's report of yesterday to the effect that Gordon Brown now looks unlikely to face a Cabinet challenger for the Labour leadership was bound to make people sit up and take notice.

Helpfully, Nick has reproduced the essence of his report on his blog today, in a piece entitled The Future's Brown.

I can't fault his analysis. But where I would slightly differ from Nick is in his assumption that there has really been any great change in the position relating to the leadership since the end of the Labour Conference five weeks ago.

There hasn't, in my view. What has changed is the media's perception of it.

Here's what I wrote at the time. "Mr Brown has largely repaired the damage done as a result of the abortive "coup" against Mr Blair three weeks ago, though he remains on probation for good behaviour....if he continues to behave himself over the next eight months, he might, just might yet get that endorsement from Mr Blair which would kill off all potential serious challenges."

Contrast this, for instance, with the view of the Daily Mail's Ben Brogan who wrote: "The truce is tosh. Tony Blair and his closest supporters are running a stealth campaign to get doubts about the Chancellor's personality and character up in lights. John Reid is emerging as the "Stop Gordon" candidate with the blessing of Number 10."

Both are perfectly respectable points of view, but where I think some commentators went wrong was, firstly, in failing to read the signal in Mr Blair's speech when he said he wanted to "heal," and secondly, by misinterpreting Dr Reid's speech on the closing day as a leadership bid.

As I said on this blog at the time, that was only one of several interpretations, and that Reid's phrase "I intend to play my full part" could be translated merely as a statement of his intention to remain in a senior role under Brown.

My conclusion, then, is that the song remains the same. Gordon has the conditional backing of everyone that really matters. But they still reserve the right to challenge him if it all goes wrong.

The polls, as ever, are the key. If they start to show that Gordon can't beat Cameron but that Reid, Alan Johnson or even David Miliband could, then much of what has been said or written thus far could count for little.