The Sun is trying to become a political party, says Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown has criticised the Sun newspaper, accusing it of trying to "become a political party" and saying it "made a terrible mistake" when it decided to back the Conservative party last month.

In an interview with GQ magazine to be published later this week, the prime minister claimed he had known "for some time" that the Sun was planning to switch allegiances but said he still respected the paper's proprietor, Rupert Murdoch.

The News International paper's decision to endorse David Cameron hours after Brown's speech to the Labour party conference in late September overshadowed the prime minister's address and was a hugely symbolic moment. The Sun had backed Labour for more than a decade.

"I have a lot of admiration for Rupert Murdoch personally," Brown told GQ's interviewer, Piers Morgan. "His family come from not far from mine in Scotland, and his attitudes to hard work and getting on with things you can only admire. But the Sun has tried to become a political party.

"It's not personal about Rupert, he's always been very friendly to me. I think the Sun's made a mistake but that's up to them."

Asked by Morgan which executive at News International made the decision to back the Tories, Brown said: "I don't know, but it doesn't matter because the people will decide what happens at the next election, not the Sun.

"I think the Sun tried to become a political party that day and that was a terrible mistake. And I suspect over time that their readers will think that, too."

Brown also said that media coverage has become increasingly personal: "I think that's a mistake, too. Take my recent trip to America. I had meetings every day with Obama, about Iraq, Iran, the economy, global warming, Afghanistan, nuclear power."

Asked by Morgan about the way the visit to Washington was covered by the British media, which claimed he had been repeatedly snubbed by the president, Brown remarked: "The journalists there knew what was happening and chose to report it differently. To call it a snub was wrong."

Talking about coverage of the credit crunch, and the measures the government has taken to tackle its effects, he said: "I don't think people are reporting what's actually happening. It's frustrating that the issues that matter to the British people in the long run are not being reported properly."

He added, however, that he did not feel he was being outflanked by the Conservative party and its press operation. "I wouldn't say I'm losing the media war, no."

In other comments made in the interview, and released to the media earlier this week, Brown said: "The BBC has got to seriously consider its salary structure."

He also said Simon Cowell deserved his multimillion-pound fortune and that he was still an avid viewer of The X Factor. "Cowell accused me of wavering in my support for The X Factor, but I haven't. I'm an X Factor fan, and Peter Mandelson looks after Strictly Come Dancing."

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