Last week, I called a senior Labour figure loyal to Keir Starmer and asked him about his leader’s efforts to court the Sun and the Times. He spoke for 15 minutes about the risks of letting a possible endorsement from the Murdoch press influence Labour, and how far the media landscape has shifted since the Sun could claim to be wot won it. As I thanked him for his time, he interrupted me. “Can I just check,” he said, a little sheepishly. “Have you heard anything?”
My source admitted the contradiction: arguing for a new settlement in his party’s relationship with the press, but unable to shake off the habits of the old one. He is not alone. “Every other conversation with a shadow cabinet minister at conference last year came back to whether the Times would back Starmer,” a Guardian colleague says. “They are obsessed.” A reporter for News UK, the title’s owner, says junior Labour staffers regularly ask for updates on their newspaper’s stance. A rival lobby journalist grumbles that Labour gives News UK outlets “special treatment”. A thinktank staffer mentions a special adviser with a Google alert for “the Sun says” and “Starmer”.
