The Sun shines and the bling dazzles for Cameron

The Beckhams are famous for their lavish parties and, tonight, thanks to an invitation from Rebekah Wade, Editor of The Sun, David and Samantha Cameron have got tickets to the England captain's World Cup Party at 'Beckingham Palace'.  Today's Independent on Sunday spotlights some of the party's 350 guests and wonders what David Cameron might be able to learn from them:

• THE BECKHAMS: David can show how the right wing can occupy the centre. Posh could buy bags from Samantha.
• WILL YOUNG: Advice on how to win the gay vote and how to be popular despite being posh.
• JEREMY CLARKSON: Could get the motoring lobby onside and might offer to follow Dave's bicycle.
• ROBBIE WILLIAMS: Can give lessons on leaving a fading group and becoming a star in your own right.
• DJ SPOONY: The Radio 1 favourite could teach Dave a bit about the art of spin.
• WAYNE AND COLLEEN: Their credit cards could help build bridges with Liverpudlians.

There's more of the same here.

Comments

[David Belchamber]

The Sun vote can win elections.

[Ted]

Further confirmation the Murdoch press is moving I think - so while in US he cosies up to Hilary in UK its now DC & the Tories....

[kingbongo]

If Wade is invitng the Camerons anywhere it shows how worried she is about her job. It would seem Murdoch is preparing the groundwork for a switch back to the tories (Kelvin gets a column and Blunkett gets the heave-ho is another clue). La Wade may well be prepared to live with the change to keep hold of her stonking great salary but let's face it, her heart wouldn't be in it.

[Ted]

How many fairweather "friends of Tony" are now lokking at being devotees of Dave I wonder.

Blagging his way into the World Cup party is a good riposte to Gordon's conversion to England supporter but Dave please don't get too caught up in the other A List / B list of celebrity Britain.

[Selsdon Man]

Why is Rebekah Wade issuing invitations rather than the Beckhams? Don't they have friends of their own?

[Paul Kennedy]

Might be wiser for Mr & Mrs Cameron to spend Sunday night at home with the children and develop the family man image which I think is an important one.

[G-MaN]

Is that a serious comment Paul? Honestly!

[Paul Kennedy]

;)

[Yet Another Anon]

>>>>The Sun vote can win elections.<<<<
It can sway close elections, usually what happens though is that The Sun waits until it is clear which side is on the up and then backs them, Rupert Murdoch is interested in selling newspapers and getting other media deals not in internal British Politics in itself, so long as he is allowed to get on with making major profits he doesn't care who runs the UK - if David Cameron looks like he might be the next PM and that continues up until the run in to the General Election and Rupert Murdoch thinks that at least David Cameron will also give him what he wants then he will back the Conservative Party.

[Editor]

I should imagine that this week's attack by George Osborne (partly inspired by Hugo Swire, I understand) on the BBC's crowding out of competitors will help with the Tory-Murdoch relationship.

[James Hellyer]

what happens though is that The Sun waits until it is clear which side is on the up and then backs them

That's the case with their electoral declarations of support, but where the paper does make the running is with its day to day commentary. The consistent bashings it can dole out are what helped destroy Kinnock and Hague's credibility.

[Richard]

I detest the cult of celebrity and the irritating way that celebrities take it upon themselves to try and dictate government policy just because they can play a guitar well or whatever. The whole "politicians hanging out with celebrities to appear trendy" plan is just another Blairite failure. I doubt it won Blair and votes and I can't see Cameron winning any by taking part in this.

[Ted]

I don't think its only Murdoch looking at which way the winds blowing (though thats a part).

He has tended to support labour/left parties when they adpted a more free enterprise approach and moved away from traditional Labour. I think he saw Blair as the means to support a permanent move towards centre-right approach to business - a sort of if its good for News International it's good for the world approach.

James Hellyer is spot on in the effect of the Sun becoming a Tory supporting paper (if it does) - Tony's spin will stop working but with Kelvin back he'll keep the bad news going.

I think Brown had a part - Irwin Stelzer was very unimpressed with the Budget and Gordon's declaration that he could have cut tax but knew better how to spend the cash. While Stelzer has issues with Cameron (possibly more so with Osborne) I think Murdoch doesn't see a tax & spend politician as one deserving of support.

[Paul Kennedy]

I understand Dave West, who made his money running the EastEnders beer and wine warehouse in Calais, secured 2 tickets for the bash by bidding £103,000 on Ebay. The money will go the the NSPCC, for whom the event is hoping to raise £3 million.

The Beckhams are hoping to offset some of their costs by selling the TV rights to ITV.

Guests will be expected to dig deep into their pockets and some of the items to be auctioned include a £500,000 apartment in Dubai given to the Beckhams by Sheik Mohammed al-Maktoum, its ruler; a £1m Asprey diamond necklace and earrings set designed by Victoria Beckham; two diamond-encrusted watches valued at £60,000 from Jacob & Co of New York; and a Bentley car ( which is alas not very environmentally friendly, albeit a superb car and built at Crewe).

[Matthew Oxley]

It could mean many things really, may just be a warning to Brown not to take their support for granted, or perhaps a chance to persuade Cameron away from his redistribution talk. It may even be a secret ploy to embarrass Cameron by arranging a fight with Wayne Rooney!

[Gregor]

Here's a thought, maybe he just wants to go to THE party of the year (except if England win the world cup of course). If someone offered me the opportunity to go I'd snap it up!

[William]

I think it's quite a cute idea that Murdoch cares about the politics of politicians. On one level he might do.

It's correct that he has a nose for pleasing whoever's going to hold the cards. He played ball with Maggie who in return ensured he acquired the Times and the Sunday Times when on a strict interpretation of the rules, he should only have got the Times. (The ST was making money. The Times was not.)

More recently since 1996, he's played for Blair - getting in return the whole of British satellite TV, and the whole of the TV rights to the Premier League worldwide. This has underpinned the huge success of his Asian Channnels attracting 300 million audiences in China watching PL matches on Star which feature Chinese players such as Everton.

The only person Murdoch truly fears as a result has no role in British politics at all. M knows that he can play any British politician and get exactly what he wants. Who knows? It might have been Murdoch that demanded Britain went to war in Iraq as he was seeking to pay back Bush for his biggest break of all at Fox TV. At least he might have acted as Bush's pressure point to exert leverage on Blair. The Sunday Times journalist Irwin Stelzer was at the forefront of the Kelly negotiations which seemed a little odd.

In our zone the only person who really has the power to put one over on Murdoch is the EU Competition Commissioner - previously Mario Monti...recently changed to soe (cannot remember who).

It is entirely possible that Monti wanted IDS out of the Conservative leadership in 2002 and put pressure on Murdoch to do the deed. Again it was decideley odd how big a role the editors of the Sun and the Times played in IDS' assassination, Kavanagh going on radio to tell the world that IDS must go, the day before he fell.

If the EU want Murdoch to back Blair or Cameron, they can put the ultimate pressure on Murdoch, by threatening him with EU competition rules to remove football games from him, or satellite TV channels.

That said Cameron is not totally powerless, and Murdoch would want to keep his options open to play the winner of a future election.

Howard went to Murdoch's annual convention to plead his loyalty prior to the 2005 GE. The Murdoch Press seemed to be switching sides towards Howard. But when the truth came out about the extraordinary amount of electoral fraud being used by Labour - especially the Postal variety - Murdoch first tried to publicise the story. Look at his papers two to three weeks prior to the GE 2005.

But when people were dumbfounded and not able to take in what was happening, Murdoch was forced to swing back to supporting New Labour, realising that the 6 million postal votes applied for would probably be enough to steal the result and give Blair a third term, which it did.

[kingbongo]

William, one minute Murdoch can arrange a war in the Middle East and the next he can't even fix a British Election.

Surely a much more likely scenario is that Murdoch and Blair organised an enormous electoral fraud by arranging for the tories to win a majority of English votes but 90 odd fewer seats than Labour. Murdoch was going to back Howard but then he found out Howard didn't get on with Bush and the truth would have come out about how Murdoch arranged an oil war to boost Fox News's ratings. In the meantime the European Commission in its usual inept way attempted to run a massive postal voting scam to allow the Lib Dems into power but as usual when translating from Latvian to Portugese via German they cocked it up and added more votes for Labour.

Editor - enough of the cracked conspiracy rantings!

[william]

Try http://rightlinks.co.uk/linked/modules/wiwimod/index.php?page=Postal+Voting

The evidence is there.

I like your pastiche Kingbongo. Follow the story a second time, and pick out which piece doesn't agree, and we can discuss.

[William]

and Murdoch might be getting a little bothered himself now about EU power...he's fattened the goose so much, it's eyeing him up for a tasty dinner!

http://www.ukip.org/ukip_news/gen12.php?t=1&id=2179