ABSTRACT
If a week is a long time in politics, then nine years is an eternity. Nevertheless, it would seem that a remarkable political transformation has occurred within the last decade in Britain. In conceding defeat in the 1992 general election Neil Kinnock, the Labour leader, claimed that ‘The Conservative-supporting press has enabled the Tory party to win yet again, when the Conservative Party could not have secured victory for itself on the basis of its record, its programme or its character.’ 1 This view was echoed by Lord McAlpine, the Tory peer, who claimed that ‘The heroes of this campaign were Sir David English, Sir Nicholas Lloyd, Kelvin Mackenzie and the other editors of the grander Tory press’ 2 Yet by 2001 the fact that the large majority of the national press endorsed Labour passed with very little remark from either victors or vanquished. The British now appear to be thoroughly accustomed to the fact that the ‘Tory press’ has now been replaced by what Peter Hitchens has memorably termed the ‘Tony press’. 3
