LONDON (Reuters) -Rupert Murdoch-owned British tabloid newspaper The Sun endorsed the Labour party and its leader Keir Starmer on Wednesday, one day before a national election.
Britons will vote on Thursday in an election which opinion polls say will bring Labour to power and end 14 years of Conservative government.
“It’s time for a change,” the Sun said in an editorial published online.
“The insurmountable problem faced by the (Conservatives) is that – over the course of 14 often chaotic years – they have become a divided rabble, more interested in fighting themselves than running the country.”
It added: “There are still plenty of concerns about Labour … But, by dragging his party back to the centre ground of British politics for the first time since Tony Blair was in No. 10, Sir Keir has won the right to take charge.”
The paper joins the Financial Times and the Sunday Times in endorsing the opposition Labour Party.
Among other newspapers, the Daily Mirror and the Guardian have also endorsed Labour, while the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph have backed the Conservatives. The Economist, a pro-business weekly magazine, has thrown its weight behind Labour.
The Sun is one of Britain’s best selling newspapers and boasts a record of backing winners in elections.
The tabloid, part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp media empire, famously crowed “It was the Sun wot won it” in 1992, claiming its support had swayed 10 million readers to back John Major’s Conservatives to an unexpected election victory.
It switched its support to Labour before Blair led the party to the first of three successive election victories in 1997.
In 2009, The Sun turned away from the Labour Party after more than a decade of support and said it would support David Cameron’s Conservatives under the headline: “Labour’s Lost It”. Labour lost the 2010 general election.
It has supported the Conservatives ever since.
(Reporting by Sarah Young, writing by Kylie MacLellan and Sachin Ravikumar)
