Labour loses The Sun – will it lose Britain?
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Contributing editor
Emily Hohler Oct 02, 2009
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'Labour's Lost It' read the front page of last Wednesday's Sun. After 12 years of supporting Labour, Britain's best-selling newspaper is turning to the Tories. Sky's political editor Adam Boulton described the move as "a nail in the coffin of the prime minister". But Labour is going down anyway, says Max Hastings in the Daily Mail.
Watching Gordon Brown give his conference speech in Brighton was like "seeing a man condemned by a fatal illness telling relatives at the bedside of his plans for a new holiday home". He is not a bad man. "But he is cursed by a profound belief that the state – which for a decade, has meant himself – knows better how to spend our money than its citizens do." None of his policy pronouncements mattered, since the reality is that Britain is "weary of Labour, unforgiving of the recession and government profligacy, bored with grey, unloveable Gordon and his thin, implausible smile".
But they do matter, says Peter Oborne in the Daily Mail. That's what's so frightening. His speech was littered with spending commitments targeting key voter groups. His "expensive wish-list" included promises to keep up investment in schools; help old people stay in their homes; provide finance of £1bn for growing business and sheltered accommodation for single mothers aged 16 or 17.
"An honest speech would have set out the grave economic problems this country faces" and explained the "painful but necessary measures" needed to control the national debt. Instead, he "delivered a cynical deception". The prime minister is now "open to a very grave charge that he has mortgaged the country's financial future to try to secure his own political survival".
Brown's speech was even more cynical than that, says Simon Heffer in The Daily Telegraph. "Contained in it was the startling admission that he knows he is unlikely to win an overall majority in next year's general election. Why, otherwise, would he have risked the wrath of his party – who mostly hate the Lib Dems almost as much as the average Tory does – and promised a referendum on the alternative vote system of proportional representation?"
He feigned concerns about some MPs being elected on less than 50% of the vote in their constituencies. But in the reality, his promise of the vote on PR is designed to win over the Lib Dems. With them on side, if neither Labour nor the Tories secure an overall majority in the general election, Brown can then remain in office "for as long as the Lib Dems decide to keep him there". Those who hoped that this was Brown's last prime ministerial conference address would be "wise not to run down to Paddy Power and put money on that being the case".
Well, the party don't seem very optimistic about Labour's chances, says Rachel Sylvester in The Times. Peter Mandelson might have won a standing ovation with his fighting speech, but "in private there is an overwhelming sense of doom", with talk of Labour being 'out of power for a generation' and 'finished as a force in British politics'. Brown has lost Middle England and if Labour loses power, it will "almost certainly go back to its comfort zone" – returning to its left-wing roots, rejecting market ideas and spending cuts. As a cabinet minister said: "The party will say to the modernisers: you've had your chance and you blew it. Now let us follow our heart."
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Emily Hohler
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