Top tabloid switches support from Labour

       Britain's topselling daily newspaper dealt a blow to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's efforts to win a general election, declaring yesterday it had switched its support to the opposition Conservatives.
       The Sun , part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp media empire, delivered a damning thumbs-down the day after Mr Brown's keynote speech to his ruling Labour Party conference.
       "After 12 long years in power, this government has lost its way," the Sun said in a front-page article, featuring a picture of Mr Brown and the headline "Labour's lost it".
       The Sun boasts a circulation of more than 3 million and a record of backing winners in elections. It switched its support to Labour before Tony Blair led the party to the first of three successive election victories in 1997.
       Mr Brown replaced Mr Blair two years ago but faces a fight for political survival.He must call an election by next June and the centre-right Conservatives are ahead by 15 points or more in polls.
       "The British people will decide the election, not a newspaper. I think people really want newspapers to report news and expect them to do so," Mr Brown said.
       Ground down by recession and angered by a scandal over lawmakers'expenses, Britons appear ready to embrace the Conservatives.
       "What this is signalling is that they [the Sun ] think their readers have turned,just as in 1996 when they switched support to Blair, a similar time out from the election," Ivor Gaber, professor of political campaigning and reporting at London's City University, said.
       "They weren't saying 'we suddenly think New Labour is good', they were saying 'we know where our readers are at', and no newspaper likes to be behind its readers."