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There’s an advert that The Independent newspaper is running saying “Rupert Murdoch won’t decide this election. You will.”

It is part of that newspaper’s campaign that is also accompanied by a video ‘The truth behind the UK general election’ that also attacks the influence of the cheque books of Lord Ashcroft and the Unite trade union have on the political parties.

The clear message is that The Independent is what it says on the masthead.

While few would question that there’s likely to be an expectation on the behalf of party funders of some sort of return on investment, the whole business of attaching the allegiance of your newspaper to a political party does all seem a bit strange.

Let’s take the decision of the Guardian and Observer to support the Liberal Democrats. The move, for me, sends out a few interesting messages and possible interpretations:

Message one: Guardian readers are LibDem supporters.

Message two: the LibDems are like Guardian readers – the stereotype of which tends to involve sandals with socks; pipe smoking (or at least vast jugs of tea); investment in the knitted jumper industry and a willingness to protest at injustices on the other side of the planet at the same time as complaining that your council tax has gone up to pay for more social workers here. Okay that last one is a bit unfair given that social workers have a long history of Guardian allegiance.

Message three: the LibDems are not very Scottish – the Guardian’s staffing in Scotland and coverage of Scottish issues is not all that it could be.

Message four, and this one is potentially the most damaging for the newspaper: you can now expect that the Guardian is not going to be as objective as you had thought it was and that it is somehow going to be nicer to the LibDems.

What’s interesting is that the political parties themselves somehow seem less enthusiastic about newspaper patronage than they were before.

Those parties that have gained a new cheerleader this time around are pleased but a little evasive about just how important it is to them. Those parties which have lost patronage remind everyone that it is the voter who decides.

And, increasingly, newspaper patronage is of no real consequence anyway.

The first TV party leader debates have led to a seismic shift in the way that the political parties reach the voting public of the UK, and it’s not through newspapers.

Not to be left out, the newspapers have busily devoted many column inches to assessing how each encounter went for those who took part. And, inevitably, there has been a certain amount of viewing the performances through the prism of each newspapers political standpoint if they have one.

But there was a sense of the newspapers being spectators rather than central actors – perhaps another uncomfortable reminder that the world is moving on along a path that the newspapers might not have chosen.

What must not be forgotten, though, is that newspapers do not tend to back losers. The guardians of the Guardian brand must have a pretty high expectation that the LibDems are going to do rather well. If the party bombs at the polls then the Guardian brand will also be damaged.

 [The views expressed by Morhamburn people in their blogs are theirs and theirs alone. they do not represent the thoughts of the company as a whole or our clients. If you have a comment to make on any blog, please email info@morhamburn.com and we’ll put the printable ones up on the website]