The Sun backs Boris

The Sun - as well as carrying a major interview with Boris Johnson - has today backed the Tory mayoral hopeful. 

The Sun Says column lists five key Boris promises and concludes:

"Boris Johnson has the energy and imagination to give this great city what it needs... A new and fresh champion for London."

This is the first time (we think) a Conservative has been endorsed by The Sun since Tony Blair won the endorsement of Britain's biggest-selling newspaper in 1997.  A sign of things to come?

Congratulations must go to the media operation, Katie Perrior and others, who have worked so hard to get Boris a good press.  Victory is still going to require a lot of hard work but today should bring a smile to every Conservative.

In other good news for Boris Johnson, Brian Paddick has said that he could work with Boris but not with Livingstone.  The Times has the story on a crucial signal to LibDem voters as to how to use their second preference.

4pm: Photo of Boris on The Sun's battle bus:

6pm from PoliticsHome: "Tony Blair regarded it as a great coup to win the support of Rupert Murdoch's Sun at the 1997 election and Labour has always been twitchy about any sign that the mass-selling tabloid might switch back to the Tories. The PHI100 think that Gordon Brown should be anxious that The Sun is backing Boris Johnson to be Mayor of London.   Seventy per cent of the panel think this is 'a serious sign' that the paper is 'leaning towards the Conservatives generally'.  Only twenty one per cent believed it was merely 'a simple preference for Boris Johnson over Ken Livingstone'.  One panellist thought it was ' a shot across Labour's bows'.   Another observed that it was a case of 'Murdoch keeping Brown and Cameron on tenterhooks'."

Comments

[Mark Fisher]

The GLA includes the office of the Mayor and the Assembly. The direct mandate of the Mayor makes whoever occupies the post a much more powerful political player than any leader of the GLC, Tory or Labour, ever was.

[Neil Martin]

I see- I assumed you were using GLA to include only the Assembly because you rarely see people use GLA to mean the Authority as a whole.

[Ross McKay]

So 'Boris' is acceptable to a self-confessed homosexual who is a paid-up member of the most Europhiliac party in the land? And that's good news?
Bye-bye Conservatism!