The remarkable bleakness of the Tory press endorsements

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It’s fair to say that the UK’s Conservative Party hasn’t exactly won over the press in this General Election. As the polling stations opened their doors this morning, the nation’s papers came out overwhelmingly for Labour.

Even plenty of previously Conservative-supporting titles abandoned Rishi Sunak in favour of Keir Starmer – including the Sun, which had previously backed the Tories in every election since 2010, and The Sunday Times, which is endorsing Labour for the first time in 20 years. (The Times refused to endorse anyone at all.)

Even the outlets that have come out for the Tories have done so begrudgingly. ‘Disillusioned Tories’, wrote the Daily Mail last week, ‘may wish to punish their party for its manifest failings of recent years. In doing so, however, they must be careful not to punish themselves by ushering in something far worse.’ It was not so much an endorsement of the Conservatives as a call for tactical voting to prevent ‘Starmergeddon’.

The Daily Express has echoed a similar, resigned sentiment this week: ‘Vote Tory or hand Labour unchecked power.’ A Labour victory may be inevitable, but ‘the only real fight yet to be won now is the battle to ensure there is an effective opposition to properly hold Sir Keir Starmer to account’. The argument is this: yes, the Conservatives have failed to deliver on any of their promises, but they are still the lesser of two evils.

Even Conservative Home hasn’t felt able to enthusiastically throw itself behind the party it is named for. ‘Vote Conservative’, read a headline on the site this morning, ‘Because things can only get worse’. ‘However many MPs we win today, opposition will be hideous. But every vote for a Tory is one step closer back to power.’

These endorsements – if you can even call them that – are telling. When the most that can be said about the Conservatives, by Conservative-friendly publications no less, is that they’re not Labour, then you know the party is in deep trouble. With some polls predicting as few as 82 seats for the Tories, the priority for supporters is stemming losses. You can only rebuild a party from the ashes if there are some ashes left.

The best the Conservatives can hope for now is to avoid total collapse. And even that is more than they deserve.

Lauren Smith is a staff writer at spiked.