As the dust settles, things are becoming clearer. They seem to be getting a lot clearer at the Daily Mail, for example. Today the main opinion article is by the City editor, Alex Brummer who confesses that he was conned by Gordon Brown. He had, he says, thought since 1997 that Gordon Brown was a good chancellor - his embracing of the City was a good sign and a great improvement on previous Labour chancellors.

But now, Mr Brummer, admits, the pre-budget report has changed his view of Mr Brown. He thinks "prudence has been trown ruthlessly overboard" and "gone is the economic rectitude of which the Treasury boasted for so many years".

The views of Mr Brummer are not, in the great scheme of things, of huge importance. But the printing of this article, I suspect, tells us that the view of Mr Paul Dacre may be changing and that is very important indeed. Mr Dacre, for those who do not know, is the editor of the Daily Mail. For all the time since Gordon Brown has been chancellor and continuing while he has been prime minister, Mr Dacre has been an admirer of Mr Brown. The Daily Mail is thought of by many as a right-wing newspaper and in many respects Mr Dacre has right-wing views. But his view on economics are not doctrinaire or passionately in favour of low taxes and small government. He probably prefers these things, but not with religious fervour - or not enough of it to stop him admiring Mr Brown. I used to know Paul Dacre pretty well since I was a leader-writer for the Daily Mail for two years. He is not perfect of course but I admired him a great deal and admired his courage in pursuing ideas about damaging changes in the British way of life. He got a lot of insults from the "liberal" media over these things. However it was a great frustration to me that he would not countenance a hostile approach to the policies of Gordon Brown (except in recent years by Richard Littlejohn who was obviously given licence to express his robust views in his column without restraint).

But the fact that Paul Dacre commissioned Alex Brummer to write this piece today saying that his (Brummer's) view of Gordon Brown has changed indicates that, more significantly, Mr Dacre's view has changed. Mr Brummer, probably understanding his employer's wishes, is not directly critical of Mr Brown himself. But there is no escaping the fact that all he describes has taken place under Mr Brown's stewardship.

Another article in today's paper that also suggests that finally Mr Dacre is seeing through the New Labour story. It is by Edward Heathcoat Amory and he describes how most of the jobs created in all the regions of Britain since 1997 have been in the public sector: "More than 1.3 million of the 2.2 million jobs created between 1998 and 2006 were in public sector areas".

So we now have a view emerging in the Daily Mail that Labour is being reckless with its borrowing and that most of the growth in jobs in the years of Labour power consisted only of public sector jobs. It is heading towards the view (or am I being too hopeful?)that much of the apparent growth that took place after the first three or four years of Labour government was a con trick, being created by rising debt and government spending, not real increases in production or productivity.

Why does the view of the Daily Mail matter? Because it is perhaps the most politically important newspaper in Britain. It has a far bigger circulation than the "quality" newspapers and is read by people who vote (whereas some readers of the low-end newspapers probably do not vote). Many of its readers are floating voters.

For over a decade, the Daily Mail has been sympathetic to Gordon Brown and his works. If that is truly changing, I suspect he really is finished.

p.s. For a truly hostile approach to Mr Brown, try this.

Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Media, including BBC bias • Politics

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