‘Honeymoon will be very, very short’: rightwing media is set to turn on Starmer

As the exit poll broke on Thursday night, predicting a vast Labour majority and 13 MPs for Reform UK, GB News cut to a roomful of its viewers. “Who is happy about that Labour landslide tonight?” asked presenter Michelle Dewberry, prompting grumbles and low boos. “And what about those Reform seats?” she countered, raising a cheer.

Right-wing commentator Darren Grimes continued the Reform celebrations: “I’m going to do 13 shots at the bar as soon as I get off,” he joked. Even as the number of Reform MPs turned out to be five, the feeling on the channel, which has employed Nigel Farage, Richard Tice and Lee Anderson in recent months, was less a wake for the outgoing Tories, and more a party for the rise of a new right-wing entity.

As Keir Starmer enters Downing Street, he faces an interesting media landscape. Back in April, one survey suggested readers of the Sun , Telegraph and Express were more likely to vote Labour than Conservative. Before the election, Labour was endorsed by the Financial Times , Sun , and the Sunday Times , while the Daily Mail and Telegraph were preoccupied by Farage. The Mail spent just as much energy denouncing him as they did Labour, while the Telegraph painted him as a sort of rock star in a long and glowing profile from Allison Pearson.

The stance of different outlets is now more complicated than a left-right binary, said editor of the Spectator and Telegraph columnist Fraser Nelson. “You’d struggle to say that the Telegraph has been cheerleading the Conservatives in the past year. Certainly the Spectator has been giving full-strength scrutiny to all Conservative prime ministers,” Nelson said. “And we’re not going to change that one bit when the new government comes along. That’s what readers want. They don’t want fanzines.”

David Yelland, who edited the Sun from 1998 to 2003, and now runs his own PR firm, warned that News UK’s Labour endorsements were “calculated”, coming too late in the election to make a real difference. “It’s important for Starmer and those around him to understand that the two most powerful newspaper groups, News UK and [ Daily Mail owners] Associated Newspapers, are not his friends,” Yelland said. “They’ll never be his friends.” Indeed, Friday’s edition of the Sun already challenged the new prime minister: “Better times? Let’s see them … While we wish Labour luck, we will scrutinise every decision and hold their feet to the fire.”

“The era of endorsements is slightly fading,” Nelson said. “Readers are increasingly suspicious of agenda-driven publications, they want to see the world from all angles.”

While Labour might have a brief respite from the full force of the right-leaning press, “A honeymoon period will be very, very short. Almost nonexistent,” Yelland said. Simon Evans, a commentator and comedian, who hosts GB News show The Headliners and is a regular right-wing voice on BBC’s News Quiz , agreed: “In six months most of them will be not just hostile, but able to identify specific broken promises.”

Reform’s 4m votes could complicate media coverage. Nelson notes that all outlets will have to grapple with the gap between seats in parliament and vote share. “It’s a mistake to look at parliament as a proxy for public opinion,” Nelson said. “We’ve seen support for the Greens, for independent Gaza candidates, the two main parties getting the smallest share of the vote for a century. All publications will bear that in mind when they’re dealing with readers who have never been less likely to align behind one of the two main parties.”

The headline for GB News “is the triumph of Reform,” said Evans. “GB News will feel that they have been vindicated,” he added, with election results suggesting its audience is less fringe than thought. However, he added: “I don’t think GB News will be pushed any further to the right.”

It’s likely that tabloid coverage could be driven by Reform in coming months though, said Yelland. “Farage says he’s coming for the Labour party. He’ll work with the tabloids to control the agenda,” he said. “Most of the tabloids are at least 50% pro-Reform now, if not more. Three areas that the right will push are: immigration, what they call ‘the war on woke’, and net zero. The tabloids are going to use these tools of the right to oppose the government.”

Taking media critiques with a pinch of salt and focusing on governing will be crucial to Starmer’s success, said Yelland. “I know from experience, being a tabloid editor, once you think you’re able to affect how they’re running the country, then you keep on going,” Yelland said. “I’m not saying ignore the media. But if you’ve got five years in government, you have the space to build an inner sanctum that is focused on strategy and not on managing the news cycle.”

Nelson believes the ambivalent edge to Starmer’s landslide opens an exciting era for press across the political spectrum. “The next five years are going to be thrillingly unpredictable,” he said. “This week sets the scene for an extraordinary political drama. All newspapers will have a fascinating and important job to do trying to understand the new political landscape as it keeps evolving.”