Murdoch reportedly “berated Sun journalists for not doing enough to attack Ed Miliband”

The Sun have never been fans of Ed Miliband. This was only exacerbated by his decision to attack Rupert Murdoch over phone hacking (leading indirectly to the closure of the News of the World), backing the Leveson inquiry, announcing plans to restrict media ownership and apologising for posing with a copy of The Sun.

But it’s fair to say that The Sun never liked Miliband anyway, and after viciously turning on Labour during the 2010 election campaign (anyone remember Gordon Brown being attacked for writing a letter to the mother of a dead soldier? Or the anti-Labour billboards the party drove around Labour’s 2009 conference?) they’ve always planned to give Miliband a “Kinnocking”.

So today’s report in the Independent is a fascinating insight into Murdoch’s personal drive to stop Miliband winning the election:

“Mr Murdoch is understood to have made his views clear on a visit to London at the end of February, during which he met with senior Tories including the Conservative chief whip and former Times executive Michael Gove.”

“The News Corp boss, who has made no secret of his dislike of the Labour leader, told the editor of The Sun, David Dinsmore, that he expected the paper to be much sharper in its attacks on Labour.”

“A source said: “Rupert made it very clear he was unhappy with The Sun’s coverage of the election. He basically said the future of the company was at stake and they need to get their act together.”

In recent weeks, The Sun have mocked Miliband up as a character from Downton Abbey and ran a headline suggesting that he’d lost the election after the first TV debate (despite having out-polled Cameron with some pollsters). Oh – and they’ve set up Sun Nation, a poorly disguised anti-Labour attack site that includes a game where you have to throw bacon sandwiches at zombified members of the Shadow Cabinet. It was launched in March – just a few weeks after Murdoch’s visit to the UK…

Whatever Murdoch told them, The Sun are doing their best to attack Miliband on a daily basis, often on the very thinnest of premise. Whether or not it works though, remains to be seen. But perhaps Labour should say openly that a vote for Miliband is a vote to make Rupert Murdoch – and Sun columnist Katie Hopkins – very upset.