Paper Monitor
10:36 UK time, Wednesday, 30 September 2009
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Well, it's finally happened. After all the speculation, the Sun has declared its colours for the forthcoming general election, and they most certainly do not mirror the bold hue of its famous masthead.
The Sun, still Britain's best-selling daily newspaper, has , which it has backed since the 1997 general election, and come out for David Cameron's Conservatives (except for viewers in Scotland - the neither endorses Cameron nor the SNP.)
Had anyone from April 1992 found themselves catapulted forward 17 years, then if the shock of time travel didn't render them mute with disbelief, the notion the Sun could be anything but a dyed in the wool cheerleader for the Tories would doubtless induce all the hallmarks of circulatory shock.
But that, of course, was pre-Blair; pre-New Labour.
What's notable, in Paper Monitor's admittedly small frame of reference, is not only how the Sun has come out against Labour, but a large contingent of its staff writers have too.
There's associate editor Trevor Kavanagh, business editor Steve Hawkes, health editor Emma Morton and columnist Jane Moore - all sticking it to Brown and his government's record, across pages two and three. Defence editor Tom Newton's contribution is particularly notable for his deployment of the first person in his analysis.
It's tempting to think Gordon's Brown's speech to the Labour conference precipitated the Sun's declaration.
But there are tell-tale signs that this has been in the making for good while. Note the illustration of a wilting Labour red rose, drawn to appear as a glum Gordon Brown, drooping over the shed petals of a previous flower - Tony Blair, since you ask.
But more than this, there's the poster-sized gatefold pull-out of evidence that nestles between the centre pages. It's an info-graphics fest, with bar charts and graphs of all sorts interspersed with pictures of feral children and hospital patients.
Yes, this is a dumping of significant magnitude. The Sun has raided Labour's wardrobe with a pair of scissors and cut its tailored Italian lounge suits and silk ties to shreds, before stuffing its suitcase with a scant few blue garments and storming out.
Read it as an editorial decree nisi, with Labour granted occasional future visiting rights perhaps through one off opinion pieces by the likes of Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn.
But it's not all bad news for Labour, at least not for its champion of equal rights Harriet Harman. The Sun's declaration has done away with today's Page 3 girl - though in truth Keeley from Bromley has just been shifted to page 7, and she's backing Cameron too.
In other business, the Mirror and Mail are among those to pick up on the story of an "idyllic" cottage that is up for sale. The estate agent has pictured the cottage on the beautiful, windswept dunes of Dungeness, Kent. Move the camera though, and ta-da, .
It takes the Telegraph's Harry Wallop to note that , most notably the late filmmaker Derek Jarman who produced a glossy coffee table book about his Dungeness home and waxed lyrical about said power station.
And over at the Times, there's mild confusion in its graphical depiction of the popularity of Gordon Brown's policy announcements in yesterday's speech.
The phrase is "middle England" but while the Times uses St George's flags as an SI for its popularity rating, the whole thing is headed "Middle Britain".
The 
