Stephen Glover on The Press

The two most important newspapers for Gordon Brown are The Sun and the Daily Mail. They are by a wide margin the two highest-selling daily titles, together accounting for nearly five-and-a-half million buyers, or almost 15 million readers.

And they are also the potential "swing" papers. The loyalties of all the other daily newspapers are fairly easy to predict. The Labour-supporting Mirror is bound to support the new Prime Minister. The Guardian and The Independent are likely to be friendly. By contrast, The Daily Express, which demonises Mr Brown as the "pension raider", and The Daily Telegraph, though not yet antagonistic, will not be among his cheerleaders.

The Murdoch-owned Times is admittedly more uncertain. Though more independent than The Sun, it is hardly likely to take a very different line to that of its sibling. If The Sun maintains its support for the Government, The Times will probably not cause Mr Brown too many problems.

But will it? That depends much more on the inclinations of Rupert Murdoch than The Sun's editor, Rebekah Wade. Privately and publicly, Mr Murdoch has said some pretty withering things about David Cameron. By contrast, he seems to get on well personally with Gordon Brown and to respect him. Remember that Mr Murdoch's paternal grandfather was a Scottish Presbyterian clergyman, as was Mr Brown's father, and there is some tribal affinity, even though Mr Murdoch may have veered somewhat off the straight and narrow.

But there is one issue that could sour relations: Europe. It was never really a bone of contention with Tony Blair, but may become so with Mr Brown as a result of the treaty recently agreed by EU leaders in Brussels. The Sun and Mr Murdoch believe – and it is a view shared by such arch-Europhiles as Valéry Giscard d'Estaing – that the new treaty is essentially the old constitution in another form.

Mr Blair's promise of a referendum on the constitution was rendered null and void following its rejection by the French and Dutch, but The Sun thinks it should be honoured now by Mr Brown in respect of the very similar new treaty. Last Thursday, the day after he became Prime Minister, The Sun ran a full-length editorial arguing for a referendum.

EU leaders are planning to rush the treaty on to the statute book, with the final text agreed by October. It would then be ratified by member states in early 2008. Mr Brown is confronted with a problem that he cannot boot into the long grass. If he sticks to his no-referendum line, he will find himself in opposition to The Sun in the early months of his prime ministership.

The Daily Mail, though no less Eurosceptic than The Sun, is in a slightly different position. (I should remind readers that I write a column for the Mail.) Even now, one hears enlightened people grumbling that Mr Blair spent 10 years trying to please the Mail. Plainly they do not read it. The Mail was in a state of war with Mr Blair since 1998, if not before, and he long ago gave up any idea of trying to woo it.

The Mail admires Mr Brown far more than it ever did his predecessor. Its leader last Thursday praised his stewardship of the economy, and was generally friendly. The paper is not inclined to blame Mr Brown by association for the sins and omissions of Mr Blair. It is no secret that its editor, Paul Dacre, admires the moral substance and seriousness of our new Prime Minister as much as he deprecated what he saw as the triviality and moral vacuity of Mr Blair. Nor does young David Cameron appear yet to be his favourite pin-up boy.

Some people on the left assume the Mail will turn on Mr Brown in weeks and rip his throat out. I wouldn't be so sure. Of course, no one can predict events, and if it turned out that Mr Brown had a mistress in Kuala Lumpur, and another in Bangkok, I don't suppose the Mail would be too impressed. But, for the most part, I would expect it to attack the Government on specific issues while sparing its leader.

Europe is nonetheless bound to be a bone of contention for the Mail unless Mr Brown calls a referendum, though so far it has been less worked-up than The Sun. Mr Brown might do himself a great favour if he did change his mind. The Europhile press will make much less of a din if he calls a referendum than the Eurosceptic press will if he did not.

The new Prime Minister takes newspapers every bit as seriously as Mr Blair did in 1997. Perhaps he exaggerates their power: that is a column for another day. But, on the basis that they are important, he finds himself in a stronger position than Mr Blair ever did, since The Sun and the Mail, which after all are right-wing papers, are both supportive, and he has only The Daily Telegraph and Express against him. My feeling is that the Mail will never turn on him as vituperatively as it did on Mr Blair, and that The Sun will remain loyal, but one can see how it might all turn nasty over Europe.

What Rupert doesn't want you to know about Wendi

For a man who has made a fortune out of articles about the private lives of others, Rupert Murdoch is remarkably coy when it comes to his own. He has most chivalrously extended this protection to his attractive Chinese-born third wife, Wendi Deng, both before and during their marriage.

At the beginning of May, the Australian Fairfax group spiked a very lengthy profile of Wendi written by the experienced foreign correspondent Eric Ellis, who had laboured over it for weeks. It had been commissioned by a magazine called Good Weekend, which accompanies both the Melbourne Age and its stablemate the Sydney Morning Herald.

Most Fairfax journalists were convinced that the profile had been dumped because, as of last October, Mr Murdoch's News Corp owns a 7.5 per cent stake in Fairfax. No amount of pleading could convince them otherwise. Evidently, the piece was not a paean of praise for Wendi, and contained, for example, some acerbic observations about her dynastic ambitions. Even her best friends do not deny that she is a tough cookie.

So it seemed that Mr Ellis's work would not be published. Now it emerges that the far-sighted editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, has bought the profile, presumably in the belief that it deserves a wider airing. And yet it has not so far appeared in the paper, and there are fears that it may never do so.

I'm told that Mr Rusbridger believes that the profile is rather one-sided. Come on! Since when did such considerations prevent the Guardian running a piece about someone it does not like? I very much hope that Mr Rusbridger is not frightened of offending Mr Murdoch. He surely does not fear that the press magnate will put News of the World reporters on his back. Come on, Alan! Publish and be damned!

scmgox@aol.com