

Politicians who obsess about the contents of each day's newspapers are looking in completely the wrong direction
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I am a political journalist. So you may feel that what I am about to write is not in my own self-interest. But what the hell. My considered view is that politicians should not treat newspapers as seriously as they do. Almost all politicians read newspapers - and so they should. But not for the reason they think. The big error of politicians is to believe that newspapers change the way people vote. This leads to a connected, and in some respects bigger, error - which is to imagine that if they work at it hard enough they can swing the political stance of newspapers, and thus readers - their way.

There is no real doubt that this is what politicians believe. Gordon Brown goes to amazing - even humiliating - lengths to cultivate the Daily Mail. He does so because he hopes the Daily Mail will be more sympathetic to Labour and thus influence the way that Daily Mail readers vote. David Cameron does something similar with the Guardian, not nearly so abjectly, but in the end for a similar reason. They are largely wasting their time.

Here's why. Twenty years ago, during the 1987 general election, the pollsters Mori produced a breakdown of the political sympathies of the readers of Britain's national newspapers. Ten years later, during the 1997 general election, they did it again. Now, based on their polling in the second half of 2007, they have done it once more.

Let's start with what these surveys show about the Daily Mail. Mail readers back in 1987 divided Conservative 60%, Labour 13% and Liberal Democrat (or its then equivalent) 19%. By 1997, Mail readers broke Conservative 49%, Labour 29% and Lib Dem 14%. Now, another 10 years on, Ipsos Mori (as the polling company has now become) finds that Mail readers divide Conservative 60%, Labour 26% and Lib Dem 8%. That shows some ebbs and flows compared with 1987 and 1997, of course, but broadly speaking there is a recognisably continuous picture. The Mail is a paper read by Tory voters.

Now take the Guardian and its readership. In 1987, Guardian readers divided Conservative 22%, Labour 54% and Lib Dem 19%. By 1997, they broke Conservative 8%, Labour 67% and Lib Dem 22%. Now, in the late 2007 survey, the breakdown has become Conservative 8%, Labour 53% and Lib Dem 32%. Once again, as with the Mail, there have been some interesting changes, but the pattern has not changed fundamentally over 20 years, despite many changes in politics. Guardian readers remain predominantly Labour voters.

If we go through all the main national newspapers - with one important exception - the story is a similar one. The figures move around according to the changing political mood in the country, but the pattern in each case remains largely the same. Tory voters dominate, now as before, among readers of the Times, Daily Mail, Daily Express and Daily Telegraph. Labour predominates among Guardian, Daily Mirror and Independent readers.

The only newspaper of significance where the majority of readers have actually changed allegiance during the past 20 years is the Sun, then as now the country's largest circulation daily paper. In 1987, Sun readers voted Conservative 41%, Labour 31% and Lib Dem 19%. However, 10 years later, in 1997, Sun readers had changed decisively: Tory 30% (down 11 points), Labour 52% (up 21) and Lib Dem 12% (down seven). In the latest Ipsos Mori survey in 2007, Labour's strength holds good: Conservative 35%, Labour 48% and Lib Dem 7%.

Given the Sun's high profile, it is easy to conclude that it makes total sense for politicians to woo the paper's owner, editor and political team as a priority - and that this approach applies to other papers too. Easy but wrong. What if the terms of the political relationship between the editor and the readers are not set by the editor and followed by the readers - but the other way round?

Newspapers exist for many purposes. An important one is to sell papers. By and large they aim to satisfy their readers, not alienate them. A Daily Mail editor who promoted Labour would be cutting against the grain of the readers - likewise a Guardian editor who promoted the Conservatives. That doesn't mean such a thing is inconceivable, but it would take some explaining if it occurred. Most of the time it is a non-starter. Newspapers are self-sustaining mutual dependency cultures.

After the Tory election win in 1992, a front page famously declared: "It's the Sun wot won it." The claim was manna from heaven for the left's media conspiracy culture and the Murdoch empire's ego. But what if the Sun merely reflected its readers - who divided 45% to 36% for the Tories in 1992 - as it also reflected them when the majority of its readers were pro-Tory in 1987 and then pro-Labour in 1997? It wasn't the Sun wot won it. It was Sun readers. The two understand one another - but influence is another matter altogether.

It suits Labour politicians to think that the only reason people vote Tory is because they have been duped by evil newspaper owners rather than because they are exercising what they see as a rational choice. Conversely, it suits Conservative politicians to believe that if only they can get a hearing from people who tend to vote Labour, the voters will see the error of their ways.

The Ipsos Mori evidence actually suggests the very opposite. It sits comfortably with current fashionable notions of voting as a cultural choice rather than as a choice based on supposed rational self-interest. People choose a newspaper that suits and reflects them culturally. One of the ways it reflects them is political stance - though it is by no means the only one, as politicians like to believe. If politics were all, why would a quarter of Mail readers vote Labour, as they do?

Only a fool would say that newspapers have absolutely no influence at all on politics, or say that there is no reason whatever why politicians should try to get good coverage in newspapers. But the rewards to politicians from such efforts are marginal at best, even in elections. If politicians make a good showing or say something that chimes, people will notice it on television and radio - and the word soon gets around. Politicians who obsess about each day's newspapers are looking in the wrong direction. If the politicians build it, the voters will come. And the papers will soon follow.

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