We won't be bullied by the Sun, says Labour
Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader, launched an angry attack on the Sun today as ministers reeled from the paper's declaration that it was backing the Tories.
She responded to the news that Britain's best-selling daily newspaper wants David Cameron's Conservatives to win the election by mocking the paper's politics and declaring: "We will not be bullied. This underdog is biting back."
The prime minister, Gordon Brown, earlier said that newspapers should be for news, "not propaganda". In a round of interviews, in which he often appeared tetchy, he said that the British people, not the Sun, would decide the election.
Brown categorically ruled out standing down as prime minister and Labour leader before the general election, which must be held before 3 June 2010.
The Sun announced its move in a frontpage editorial that hit the streets hours after Brown made an attempt in his conference speech to inject self-belief back into his party, vowing to fight the election on the side of the "squeezed middle classes".
Speaking at Labour's Brighton conference, Harman said: "I am speaking to you this morning about something the Sun knows absolutely nothing about: equality," she told the party conference. "The nearest their political analysis gets to women's rights is Page 3's News in Briefs.
"We are all angry about the Sun this morning, but I say to you: don't get bitter, get better. Don't get outraged, get out there. Don't get mad, get mobilised.
"Yes, we may be the underdog, but we will not be bullied. This underdog is biting back."
In an interview on GMTV, one of five broadcast interviews he did this morning, the prime minister sought to play down the move by the paper that demonised Labour in the 1980s but switched allegiance before the 1997 election.
"It's the British people that decide elections. It's the British people that I'm interested in and it's the British people that I was talking about yesterday," he said.
"I think that Sun readers actually, when they look at what I said, will agree with what I said.
"Newspapers are entitled to their opinions. Obviously you want newspapers to be for you. But I've got an old-fashioned view. You look to newspapers for news, not propaganda. I don't think editorials will decide elections."
The Guardian understands that the newspaper waited until after Brown's speech to conference yesterday afternoon before making its final decision to ditch Labour. Trevor Kavanagh, the Sun's associate editor, acknowledged that the proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, had played a part in the move by his flagship British paper.
Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's communications chief when the Sun switched to Labour in 1997, said that the move was "far from devastating" because the media was far more diffuse than 12 years ago.
Lord Mandelson backed Brown at a breakfast meeting in Brighton with the Unite union, warning the Sun that its readers would not want it to become "a Tory party fanzine".
The business secretary said: "The proprietor may have changed his mind, but I don't think the readers want the sun to set on New Labour. When the readers read back what the party did for them in the 1980s and 90s they will see pretty quickly that a return for the Tories is not in the interests of them or their families.
"The last thing the readers want is to see the newspaper being turned into a Tory party fanzine. They want a newspaper, not a propaganda sheet."
Later, at another fringe meeting, Mandelson appeared to describe Sun readers as losers. Asked about the Sun, he said: "I think just as they may think they are picking winners, I think losers are picking them." An aide later said that the "losers" remark was a reference to the Tories, not to the tabloid's readership.
Cameron told LBC radio in London he was delighted that the paper was backing the Tories. "Obviously I want the support of as many people in the country as we can win over and as many newspapers and radios and everyone.
"Obviously I want to get the biggest possible coalition for change in Britain and I'm delighted the Sun have come out and supported the Conservative party. I think they see the government is exhausted and out of ideas and they see a regenerated, refreshed Conservative party, ready to serve. But it is people that win elections and I want to say that."
Although the electoral impact of the Sun's decision may turn out to be marginal, the paper's declaration will damage Labour's morale because it undermines efforts by Brown and his team to persuade the party it has a chance of winning.
In the conference hall, an NHS worker rounded on the newspaper's claims that Labour had "failed the NHS".
"Shame on you," said Norma Stephenson in the health debate. "When you say this Labour government has failed the NHS, you are telling all those who work for the NHS that they have failed, too. You are wrong, wrong, and even more wrong."
Asked in a Sky News interview whether he could give an assurance that he would be leading the party at the election "in all circumstances", Brown replied: "Of course."
The prime minister, who appeared angered by the line of questioning in some of the exchanges, also said that he had made up his mind about taking part in a television debate with Cameron, but that he did not want to make an announcement now.
Sky has been campaigning for a televised leaders' debate and, in two of his interviews, Brown said that he had made up his mind on this issue but that he did not want to make an announcement now because "this is not the time to talk about a debate".
Brown accused Adam Boulton, Sky News's political editor, of "sounding a bit like a political propagandist yourself" and tried to walk off the set at the end not realising that he still had a microphone attached.
When Nicky Campbell on BBC Radio 5 Live asked if he was unable to say what he would do about the debate because he was "dithering", Brown replied angrily: "I'm not. I never do, by the way."
On BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Brown said that his plan to offer free social care to the elderly in their homes would come into force next year and that it would cost £350m in the first year and £670m in the second year. He said that it would benefit 300,000 people.
On Radio 5 Live, Campbell asked Brown if he believed in God. Brown replied: "I'm a member of the Church of Scotland. My father was a minister. My personal views about religion are my own but clearly I'm a member of the church."
When Campbell asked him a second time if he believed in God, he said: "I do. Indeed I do."
Campbell also asked Brown if he believed that teenagers ought to stop having sex. Brown said that he wanted to cut the number of unwanted pregnancies, but he would not urge teenagers not to have sex.
"I'm not here to lecture individuals about their private lives," he said.
Brown also claimed that he did know his wife, Sarah, was going to speak about him at the conference until Monday and that he had not heard her speech until she delivered it.
"I don't think it was a plea to the country. I think it was her expressing her views. But that's for her to explain because she made the decision to make the speech and she also made the decision to say the things she did.
"She's just a wonderful person and I am very happy and privileged to have her as my wife."
Source: The Guardian
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