‘I wouldn’t put it past him’: questions over whether Murdoch’s UK titles will back Starmer

In the build up to the 1992 election the Sun’s attacks on the Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, who had been expected to win, were relentless. On polling day, its front page featured a mock up of Kinnock as a lightbulb with the headline: “If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights.”

When he lost, its front-page headline declared: “It’s the Sun wot won it.” Later, the Sun’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, told the Leveson inquiry the headline was “tasteless and wrong”, and that he had given the editor at the time, Kelvin Mackenzie, “a hell of a bollocking”. He added: “We don’t have that sort of power.”

After Rishi Sunak blindsided most of his own cabinet by announcing a general election on 4 July last Wednesday, much of the UK’s press held back from early endorsements of either side. But messaging already appeared to be more nuanced than in previous elections, including in the Murdoch-owned Sun and the Times.

The Sun’s editorial on Thursday was cagey, with no mention of which party it would support and calling Sunak’s decision to call an early poll an “almighty punt”. The Times was more supportive, calling Labour’s plans for national renewal “opaque”, and adding that the Conservative leader was likely to contrast his “consistency of belief in Tory orthodoxies” with “the chameleon policies of Sir Keir Starmer”.

While Murdoch, 93, stepped down last year from the helm of News Corp, the parent company of News UK, which publishes the Times and the Sun, he is said to still take a close interest in his newspapers’ political coverage. And, famously, he likes to back winners.

Steve Barnett, professor of communications at the University of Westminster, said: “Historically, both the Times and the Sun have backed the ultimate winners of the general election. Murdoch knows Starmer is going to win, and I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t at least a lukewarm endorsement.”

In other areas of the rightwing press, any form of support of the Labour leader will be scant. The Telegraph’s endorsement of the Conservatives – stating that the party was “by far the better option for Britain” – came less than three hours after Sunak’s announcement. In an editorial that was largely supportive of Sunak, the Daily Mail said that “nothing less than the future prosperity and security of the nation is at stake” – telling its readers that a vote for the Reform party was “a backdoor vote for Starmer”.

Barnett said: “While Murdoch is a pragmatist, the Telegraph and Mail are more ideological, and will be looking to influence the direction of the Tories in the wake of a defeat. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Express back Reform, for the same reason.”

But if the Murdoch press does back Starmer, it will make waves among some in the industry, who are unlikely to forget that the Labour leader brought prosecutions against more than 20 journalists, including phone-hacking charges against News UK’s now-chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, who was cleared of all charges.

“It will be an outright outrage if Murdoch supports Starmer,” said Mackenzie, the Sun’s former editor. “He was the man who brought prosecutions against journalists. They were cleared, but they had their lives destroyed or disrupted. It would be a low blow.”

Asked whom he expected the Murdoch press to endorse, he said: “It’s hard to know how he could support a lawyer who did so much damage to his people, but if [Murdoch] thought it was in his interest – I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Starmer’s attitude towards the Murdoch press is less clear than that of the last Labour leader to win a general election. In July 1995, Tony Blair flew halfway around the world to woo Murdoch at a News Corp conference on Hayman Island off the coast of Queensland, Australia – and was duly endorsed in 1997.

Media watchers point to articles by Starmer in the Sun as evidence that he is seeking approval, but a less obvious bid for backing could be witnessed in parliament last Thursday, said Nathan Sparkes, the chief executive of Hacked Off, which campaigns for tighter regulation of the press.

Labour supported the government’s media bill through the “wash-up” period, when the remaining stages of legislation are fast-tracked so it can be passed before a general election. This included the repeal of section 40, that would have required news outlets to pay the costs of the people who sue them unless the outlet was signed up to a state-backed press regulator. It was not supported by any major news publisher, including the Guardian.

Sparkes said the move appeared to raise the prospect of a Labour leadership “prepared to abandon its longstanding commitments” to tackling press reform “in the hope of generating a few positive headlines in the Murdoch press”. He urged Labour to commit to “action on press standards” and not “side with Murdoch and other press owners […] desperate to avoid accountability”.