Sunday leaders
The Sunday Times follows its sister paper by endorsing "time for a change" Boris, without providing a single positive reason why. In fact, again, they provide instead some reasons why he should not be trusted with the job:
Many have doubts about whether he is the right man for the job. His campaign has shown that the qualities that have endeared him to voters as a political clown do not translate easily into being a powerful executive mayor. […]
Mr Johnson knows that this is his last shot at demonstrating that he can be a serious politician after many false starts.
"Many" occasions when Boris has completely messed up being "a serious politician", and a failure to translate his undoubted clowning abilities into executive abilities, are not reasons to give him four years’ major power.
Indeed, as the Observer (which, like the Guardian yesterday isn’t exactly glowing about any of the candidates) puts it:
The unavoidable choice is between an incumbent whose record and character are familiar from many years in office and a challenger whose image and beliefs have been cynically manufactured for the campaign.
London is not a focus group for national parties to test their tactics, it is a city in need of a competent mayor. The only way to guarantee it has one is to cast a [second preference] vote for Ken.
The Observer is the only paper I’ve seen offering a full recommendation for the use of both preference votes: they encourage readers to put Siân first, and Ken second, making them a ‘number 2′ type in our tactical voting advice.
Ah, the Sunday Telegraph’s leader has just appeared online and, in stark contrast to yesterday’s Daily Telegraph’s leader, does explicitly (and at great length) endorse Boris. In fact it reads like some sort of party election broadcast for Boris. The only hint that he might be an incompetent, risky candidate – a doubt which I have yet to see anyone independent seriously dispute (that is, say that he definitely isn’t risky) – is the tiny phrase:
In all modesty we cannot claim that his past as a journalist was the ideal preparation for political responsibility.
That’s certainly a "modest" way to describe the huge risk inherent in electing a clown to manage an £11bn budget!
Does Boris have particularly good friends in particularly high places at the Sunday Telegraph? Following their meticulously calculated bit of front-page electioneering on his behalf three weeks ago, to find them publishing a lengthy leader apparently written on an extremely rose-tinted computer screen does make me wonder if this ‘newspaper’ might be trying to be even more pro-Boris than the Evening Standard, which would certainly take some doing.
So, now we know where nearly all the newspapers stand. (I guess one or two more may be saving their leaders for polling day itself, or shortly before.)
A defeat for Boris would be a defeat for the most reactionary and cynical instincts of the Murdoch, Mail and Telegraph press. Yet another reason to vote against Boris on Thursday!