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Campaign analysis: Thursday April 21
Daniel Forman's daily diary of the election campaign.
Thursday April 21, 11:20am
The Sun's endorsement of Labour this morning, after a two week "make your mind up" period, will be welcomed in the party's campaign HQ.
But the euphoria will be less to do with any decisive impact strategists believe the paper will have and more to do with the fact that one of the most astute readers of electorates' moods - Rupert Murdoch - has decided a third term is now nailed on.
The proprietor famously hates backing losers and despite the well known grievances of the Sun's senior editorial staff, the media mogul will have insisted on remaining inside Tony Blair's big tent.
Even the paper's political editor Trevor Kavanagh believes his legendary 1992 front page was overblown.
"When in 1992 we said 'It was the Sun wot won it', we didn't mean it literally," he has said. "It was just exuberance. We were just carried away with the euphoria."
However as commentators have noted - and Kavanagh will well understand - the drip-drip of negative stories he has run about the government on crime, immigration, travellers and Europe will have a far bigger impact on public opinion than a single editorial or symbolic red smoke.
The endorsement itself was grudging in the extreme. "Vote for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown for two reasons: Standing firm on Iraq and the lack of a real alternative," the column concluded.
The battle for newspaper endorsements does matter to a degree, even through research has shown few readers will act on editorial instructions.
Labour will want the Guardian to swing behind it in order to deny the Lib Dems the sheen of left wing approval a 'vote Kennedy' call would provide.
Likewise the Tories will look less like a credible party of government until the paper of the establishment - the Times - returns to the Conservative fold.
The FT provides a stamp of business credibility and the powerful Mail, more than any paper, backs up its editorial line with its news and comment coverage, focussing relentlessly on its pet subjects and turning that drip-drip effect into more of a stream.
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