• Blair made a conscious decision to court The Sun's notorious owner, Rupert Murdoch.
o After meeting him, he won the prize: The Sun decided to back Labour in the 1997 election, while another of Murdoch's traditionally-conservative papers, The Times, chose not to back either party, but was more positive about Labour than the Conservatives.
• Some argue that the impact of the Sun might be overstated. The paper has backed the winning party in every UK general election since the 1970s.
o It had been a Labour paper until famously switching to the Conservatives in 1979.
o However, it could be argued that the Sun is just good at predicting election results and backing winners. It is not clear that their backing actually has that big an impact on the final result.
o 2010 is sometimes presented as an exception to the Sun's power over election results, as Cameron failed to win a majority, despite the Sun having loudly switched support back from Labour to the Conservatives.