It’s a transfer of power to match Sir Keir Starmer’s arrival in Downing Street.
Lachlan Murdoch personally directed The Sun’s endorsement of Labour, insiders say, seizing the kingmaker role played for decades by his father, Rupert.
Once politicians paid court to the 93-year-old billionaire in the belief that Rupert’s backing would pave the way for electoral victory.
Now they seek an audience with the media mogul’s eldest son, the Lachlan, 52, who was confirmed as Rupert’s successor last year, taking over as chairman of the $16bn News Corp and Fox businesses.
While the semi-retired Rupert honeymooned with fifth wife Elena Zhukova, Lachlan took control of a dilemma the company’s UK papers had grappled with for months – whether to switch support from the Tories to Starmer’s Labour.
“Lachlan met Starmer and the Labour team before the election,” a company source said. “He wanted to hear from Starmer directly that Labour had moved to the centre ground. He got that reassurance. Now the new Government has to demonstrate that in office.”
There was institutional resistance at News UK to a Starmer endorsement.
In his previous role as director of public prosecutions, Starmer had sanctioned prosecutions against more than 20 journalists after the phone-hacking scandal. Those charged included News UK’s now chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, who was cleared on all counts.
Taking a cue from its readers, whose allegiances were split at the election according to the paper’s online polls, The Sun had also criticised Labour during the campaign, over issues ranging from immigration to trans rights.
Deputy editor James Slack, previously Boris Johnson’s director of communications, was understood to be among those putting the case that Labour had not done enough to deserve the paper’s full-throated support.
Another insider told i: “Victoria Newton (The Sun’s editor-in-chief) was alongside Lachlan in all the discussions. She was sympathetic towards a Labour government and wants to start off on good footing personally with Starmer.”
The figure added: “Rupert backed leaders for ideological reasons, Mrs Thatcher’s economic agenda aligned with his interests. Endorsing Starmer was a pragmatic decision for the business. He was going to win and The Sun backs winners.”
Crucially for News UK, Labour’s manifesto did not repeat a commitment under Jeremy Corbyn to revive the shelved part two of the Leveson inquiry, which would have examined claims about phone hacking at the News of the World.
The eve-of-poll Sun endorsement, which declared “it’s time for a change” but with reservations about Labour’s prospectus, reflected the differing voices within the paper.
The lukewarm backing included warnings that Labour had “no clear plan to get a grip on immigration”.
Old hands noted that Lachlan emulated his father, who would sit in on editorial conferences at The Sun before election day to ensure his writ ran through the paper’s front page.
The source said: “Lachlan was in the newsroom with Victoria on the day of the election leader. He was at News UK all week.”
Throwing its weight behind Starmer angered former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie, who suggested News UK could have been seeking to influence possible new curbs on gambling advertising.
Trevor Kavanagh, the veteran Sun commentator whose weekly columns excoriated Labour’s claims to power, announced he was retiring after the election.
The source added: “People can speculate on the reasoning behind the decisions but they were made in the best interests of Sun readers.”
While The Sun and The Sunday Times gave their backing to Labour, The Times withheld an endorsement, saying that the party had been too “sparing with the truth about what it will do in office” to get outright support.
The Times editor Tony Gallagher is a former senior executive at the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail and is known to share the conservative views espoused by those papers.
A News UK staffer said: “The Times has often gone its own way at elections, it didn’t back Blair in 1997. Starmer has met with Gallagher too but didn’t get an endorsement. It’s probably smart for the company to hedge its bets across the titles.”
Lachlan has been a regular presence at News UK’s London Bridge headquarters since taking over the reins from his father.
The CEO, who splits his time between Sydney and the US, has been quietly exerting his authority over the family business since his elevation.
Decisions on his watch include pulling the plug on TalkTV, which has gone online only after two years of low ratings. The cost of running TalkTV drove losses at News UK’s radio and TV arm to £53m last year.
Talk now continues as a YouTube channel and radio brand while Piers Morgan’s Uncensored has become an online-only show, with three million YouTube subscribers.
The Sun’s long-term future is likely to come under scrutiny. Losses have totalled £515m over the past five years, in part due to declining print sales and the high cost to its parent company of paying damages in phone-hacking settlements.
News UK has consistently denied unlawful information gathering took place at The Sun.
News UK has expressed interest in a bid for the Spectator magazine, which will be put up for auction after the collapse of the UAE-backed fund RedBird IMI’s planned takeover of the Telegraph titles.
Lachlan is avidly promoting Tubi, a free ad-supported streaming platform owned by Fox, which has become the fastest-growing on-demand service in North America and has now launched in the UK.
A major restructuring of the company’s Australian papers to counter falling revenues was announced, as well as a landmark deal with ChatGPT developer OpenAI to bring news content from The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, The Times and The Sunday Times to the artificial intelligence platform.
The next challenge will be negotiating Fox News’s path through November’s US presidential election. Rupert Murdoch fell out with Donald Trump after Fox called the 2020 election for President Biden.
Fox had to pay voting machine firm Dominion £634m after airing false claims about its technology.
Sources close to Mr Trump told The Hollywood Reporter that the Republican candidate wants to build a fresh relationship with Lachlan.
While Fox News needs to keep its right-wing viewing base to maintain advertising revenues, the channel can’t afford to let Mr Trump or his supporters repeat the kind of conspiracy theories that cost it dear in 2020.
Rupert Murdoch may be moving to a more reflective stage of his career. Next week he will give a rare on-camera interview, speaking to Sky News Australia to mark the 60th anniversary of The Australian, the country’s first national newspaper, which he founded.
Lachlan may already have one eye on the succession to come. His 18-year-old son Aidan was recently spotted working as an intern in the Sydney newsroom of News Corp’s news.com.au website, according to reports.
News UK and Starmer’s representatives were approached for comment.
Murdoch and Labour – A place in The Sun
After the public turned away from Labour and backed the Conservatives in 1992, The Sun declared on its front page: “It’s The Sun wot won it.”
On the day of the election, the tabloid’s front page had read: “If [Neil] Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights.”
In July 1995, then Labour leader Tony Blair flew halfway round the world to cement his relationship with Rupert Murdoch at a News Corp conference on Hayman Island, Australia.
Introducing him, the media tycoon joked: “If the British press is to be believed, today is all part of a Blair-Murdoch flirtation.
“If that flirtation is ever consummated, Tony, I suspect we will end up making love like two porcupines – very carefully.”
The love-in was indeed consummated when, in 1997, Murdoch switched to Blair’s New Labour project, with a full-throated endorsement six weeks before polling day.
News Corp stayed with the party for 12 years, before switching back to the Tories under David Cameron in 2010.
The Times backed no party in 1997. From 2001 until this election, it has supported the party that ended up winning the most seats.
Newspaper endorsements carry less weight with voters as sales have fallen.
When The Sun backed Blair, the paper sold four million copies a day.
It no longer publishes its print sales but the figure is believed to be under 600,000 copies.