ABSTRACT
How did the national daily press characterise John Major and Tony Blair in the 1997 election campaign? The question matters for a variety of reasons. First, the leaders dominate their colleagues in the media coverage of the party campaigns. Second, John Major had steadily lost the support of the press from 16 September 1992 - the day ('Black Wednesday') when sterling was forced to leave the European exchange rate mechanism - onwards. When Major put his leadership on the line in July 1995, only the Daily Express stayed loyal (as in 1992). So how would the papers, all except one of whom were under new editors since the 1992 election, view him in 1997?1 If Major was part of the Conservatives' problem, Blair was part of the Labour solution. Whatever his recent successes, however, he was untried as leader in a general election campaign. How would editorialists judge him?
