Last night after Gordon Brown's Labour party conference speech, the UK's largest newspaper, the Sun, declared that it is backing David Cameron and the Conservative Party at the next election.
The Sun has supported Labour since 1997 and in damning, vitriolic editorial it laid out the case against Gordon Brown in todays paper in a 'Dossier of Failures'.
Under the headline 'Labours Lost It', the Sun says "TWELVE years ago, Britain was crying out for change from a divided, exhausted Government. Today we are there again." The editorial continues with a list of things where Labour have FAILED (they use capital letters for this) and highlight 'failures' in everything from Crime to Education to Hospitals to failing our troops in Afghanistan. The most aggressive comment being "After 12 years of Blair and Brown, Britain is officially the WORST country in the developed world in which to grow up" (again their use of capital lettering and bolded type.)
All of this is then reprised online with comment from all the Sun's columnists, graphics and further expansion of the theme of 'Failed.' There is even video footage of the Sun turning blue and a seperate section called www.thesun.co.uk/feelingblue.
To promote all of this the Sun are advertising on every imaginable related keyword on Google:
The Sun has supported Labour since 1997 and in damning, vitriolic editorial it laid out the case against Gordon Brown in todays paper in a 'Dossier of Failures'.
Under the headline 'Labours Lost It', the Sun says "TWELVE years ago, Britain was crying out for change from a divided, exhausted Government. Today we are there again." The editorial continues with a list of things where Labour have FAILED (they use capital letters for this) and highlight 'failures' in everything from Crime to Education to Hospitals to failing our troops in Afghanistan. The most aggressive comment being "After 12 years of Blair and Brown, Britain is officially the WORST country in the developed world in which to grow up" (again their use of capital lettering and bolded type.)
All of this is then reprised online with comment from all the Sun's columnists, graphics and further expansion of the theme of 'Failed.' There is even video footage of the Sun turning blue and a seperate section called www.thesun.co.uk/feelingblue.
To promote all of this the Sun are advertising on every imaginable related keyword on Google:
The Sun backs the Conservative Party Google adLabour are responding to this by running their own Google ads (though their pockets are clearly not as deep as those of The Sun as the ads are not visible against many keywords and I'm sure there will be opinions about using Hillsborough to make a political point):
Labour Party respond to The Sun Google adThis is another indication that online will be a key battleground in the forthcoming UK election. It is also interesting to note that whilst tough restrictions apply to the use of media for UK political party advertising (eg no broadcast ads), these rules have not been sufficiently updated to cover the new online areas of social networks, internet video and the like.
Whilst I would like to have our nursery vouchers back, the point of this post is not to voice political opinion. I'm intrigued by the Sun's announcement today (especially the full-blooded aggression in the way it is written) and think it will be interesting to see what happens on Google during the Conservative Party conference next week.
There is no doubt though that the online election battle-lines are being drawn........
[Hat tip Currybetdotnet]
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