Mandelson attacks Sun’s ‘contract’ with the Tories

Labour warhorse Lord Mandelson has emerged as the Government's prime attack dog in the ongoing war between Gordon Brown and the Sun newspaper. The business secretary went on the Today programme this morning to accuse the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid of "bad taste and crude politicking" in its coverage of Jacqui Janes's complaint about a letter she had received from the prime minister.

Brown wrote to her to commiserate about the death of her son Jamie, a soldier in Afghanistan. But the grieving mother said the handwritten missive was riddled with errors. The Sun made great play of the story, splashing on Monday morning with a headline suggesting the PM was 'Bloody shameless', and suggesting in an editorial that the letter demonstrated Brown's "underlying disregard for the military". The ferocity of the attack surprised many, and, as reported today in the Guardian, ran against the wishes of some senior staff such as political editor Tom Newton Dunn.

Since the Sun switched its support from Labour to the Tories in September, it has run an unrelenting campaign against the Government. Now Mandelson has come out swinging against the newspaper this morning in a move that will bring considerable cheer to his embattled colleagues.

"The Sun's owner, News International, has made a decision for the newspaper to support the Conservative party," he said during the interview with James Naughtie. "They have effectively formed a contract, over the head incidentally of the paper's editor and their readers, in which they are bound to one another.

"What the Sun can do for the Conservatives before and during the election is one part of that contract. And presumably what the Conservatives can do for News International if they are elected is the other side of that bargain."

Mandelson's allegation runs counter to the claim by Murdoch himself, as reported by the Mole yesterday, that he regrets that the SUn has turned against Brown and that its decision to do so was down to its editor and not him.

On the Today programme, Mandelson went on to say that while he was indifferent about losing the Sun's support - it and the Tories "were welcome to each other" - he was concerned that by setting an anti-Government agenda, which was then followed up by another Murdoch entity, Sky News, News International were "putting pressure on the BBC to follow suit" in reporting the story. "This has wider implications for [next year's] general election, which, in my view, is of wider public concern," the business secretary concluded.

His allegation of a deal between David Cameron and the media mogul, which has been doing the rounds in political circles for some weeks now, chimes with recent reports that the Tories would cut the BBC's license fee if they win the next election, and that Murdoch's media interests would not be subject to strict regulation by Ofcom - one of the quangos that the Tories have publicly targetted for cuts.

While it was bracing to hear Mandelson on such vintage form, talking straight through Naughtie to ram his message home, the Today presenter did make a salient point: isn't this what the Sun was doing for Labour in the final months of the John Major administration in 1996-97? ·