General election: 'The British press at its partisan worst'

In October 2013 Labour leader Ed Miliband warned the Labour party faced "a big fight" with Fleet Street. It appears he was right.

Britain's electorate may be undecided - but its newspaper industry is not.

Seven daily titles are calling for a Tory-led government, while just two have supported Labour. Even more noteworthy is the tone of the endorsements.

"All pretence of separation between news and opinion gone, even in "qualities"," said Andrew Neil, chairman of the rightwing Spectator magazine. Wednesday's coverage showed the "British press at [its] partisan worst", Mr Neil said.

On the eve of the general election, the Sun's front page repeated an unflattering photo of Ed Miliband eating a bacon sandwich.

The Daily Mail printed a tactical voting guide on how to "keep out Red Ed". The guide also topped MailOnline, the world's most-read English-language newspaper website.

The Daily Telegraph's main headline warned of "Nightmare on Downing Street". It also printed an eight-page advert for the Conservatives, which unfurled into a poster of David Cameron.

The Times, the Financial Times, the Independent and London's Evening Standard have also backed the Conservatives or a Conservative-led government. The Daily Mirror and the Guardian have backed Labour.

The Daily Express is supporting the UK Independence party, and the Scottish Sun is supporting the Scottish nationalists. The Daily Star and i have not endorsed a party.

"I've worked in aggressive media environments before but not this partisan," David Axelrod, the US strategist hired by the Labour party, told Politico in an interview published on Wednesday.

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Fleet Street has also been broadly negative in its approach to the campaign. According to an analysis by the Media Standards Trust, the best-selling newspapers have all published more editorials criticising the party they dislike than positive editorials about the party they support.

The Sun, the UK's best-selling newspaper, has been more partisan than in 1992, the last knife-edge general election, the trust found. About 95 per cent of the Sun's editorials during the six-week campaign have criticised Labour, compared with 72 per cent in 1992.

<>This year the most partisan newspaper has been the Daily Mirror, which since January has published 109 leader articles criticising the Conservatives and 55 supporting Labour. By contrast, the Sun has written 102 leader articles in favour of the Conservatives, and 35 attacking Labour.

Experts say the effect of newspaper coverage on voting behaviour is hard to pinpoint. Brits receive most of their news from television, which has a legal duty to be fair and balanced in its coverage. Sales of national newspapers have fallen from 9.5m copies a day in April 2010 to 7.2m copies a day now.

Mr Miliband has looked to new voices of influence, including comedian and activist Russell Brand, whose YouTube endorsement of Labour has been viewed 625,000 times.

His relationship with the press worsened after the Leveson inquiry, when he strongly condemned Rupert Murdoch's News International - publisher of the Sun and the Times. He also attacked the Daily Mail for an article about his late father entitled "The man who hated Britain".

The vexed issue of press regulation may appear in the next prime minister's in-tray. The Liberal Democrats have said that, if the press is deemed not to have acted sufficiently, "parliament will need to act" to ensure effective self-regulation. The Labour party and the SNP are committed to implementing Lord Justice Leveson's recommendations. The Tory party's manifesto does not specifically address the issue.

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