I’m sceptical of the value of newspaper endorsements. Readers are often irritated
by being told which way to jump – if you’ve read the letters page of the Times recently you’ll know
what I mean. However, the weight of Fleet Street support for the Tories is significant.
In addition to the usual suspects, the Sun, the Times, the Financial
Times and the Economist have all defected from New Labour since 2005.
Today, the Evening Standard joins them, endorsing the Conservatives
in a general election for the first time since 1997. As with the endorsements in the Times, the Economist and the FT, Labour’s exhaustion, Cameron’s comparative vitality and the belief that the
Tories have sufficient will to reduce the deficit was the tipping point:
Newspapers do not alter the outcome of elections, but the Tories will be encouraged by the cumulative media consesus that they are the government in waiting – it may steady jittering nerves as the campaign draws into its final hours.‘The Conservatives have as yet not given enough detail about how they would reduce the deficit, but we can take seriously their promise to do so faster than Labour. And while Labour has claimed that too-early cuts would damage the economy, it is hard to see how the extra £6 billion of cuts promised so far by the Tories would seriously undermine the recovery.’
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