The Sun newspaper made its own headlines this week with the announcement to ditch Labour in the run up to the next general election. So should Gordon Brown really be worried?

Many political commentators see this as a massive blow for a Labour party already suffering in the polls believing that The Sun has the power to swing public opinion towards one party or another. But, can the opinion of one newspaper, even if it has the largest circulation in the country, really affect the outcome of a whole general election?

Certainly in 1992 and 1997 The Sun claimed that they had played an important part in first the defeat and then the victory of the Labour party. Famously, in 1992 they showed their colours with the headline, “If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain turn the lights out”. In 1997, they announced their about face with the declaration, “The Sun backs Blair” just before the party’s landslide victory in May.

However, can it truly be said that The Sun sets public opinion or would it be more appropriate to say that it is led by it? Surely, a newspaper’s main aim is to sell papers. Therefore, they are unlikely to try and alienate the majority of their readers by going against their political feelings.

A potentially telling sign is the fact that The Sun’s announcement came a day after Ipsos Mori announced that their latest opinion poll had seen Labour drop into third place with 24% of the vote behind the Conservative’s 36% and the Liberal Democrat’s 25%. This would indicate that Labour is already in a pretty weak position.

If history is an indicator, Gordon Brown should perhaps be a little worried. While a newspaper, especially with today’s declining readership figures, may not be capable of swaying the opinion of a nation, The Sun, like rats off a sinking ship, knows when a battle is already lost. In Gordon’s own words, "It is people that decide elections, not newspapers” and it seems The Sun believes the people already have.

- Katherine Williams-Davies, Account Manager