For Trevor Kavanagh, the hunting season he has been looking forward to for years is finally beginning. He has never been fond of Labour politicians, but now they are like unprotected game.

Kavanagh, who is bald, has a beard and is wearing a suit, is one of those militant columnists unique to London: a tabloid intellectual, conservative, charming and ruthless. He works for the British tabloid newspaper The Sun.

Until now Kavanagh, 67, one of the country's most influential journalists, has always had to exercise restraint when writing for The Sun. Although he has been saying for years that the Labour government was "breathtakingly incompetent," his boss, Sun owner Rubert Murdoch, liked the government.

The media magnate supported the party, but only as long as former Prime Minister Tony Blair was its leader. In fact, Murdoch is partly responsible for Blair having been the Labour prime minister in office for the longest term in British history. Blair showed his appreciation with small favors.

End of a Long Friendship

His successor Gordon Brown, 58, is also pinning his hopes on Murdoch. The two men are acquainted and often speak with each other. Kavanagh believes that the publisher still genuinely admires Brown's intelligence and his work ethic. But now Murdoch is tired of the Labour government, as Kavanagh has been for a long time. Under the September 2009 headline "Labour's Lost It," the newspaper officially terminated its friendship with the party.

The Labour Party lost its magic a long time ago, as did Tony Blair, who the British cannot forgive for having loyally followed former US President George W. Bush into the Iraq war. At the end of January, Blair will be called to testify before an independent public inquiry into the Iraq War. He will be asked to respond to charges that he lied to the public over going to war. His appearance could turn into a public tribunal on 13 years of Labour rule, and perhaps even -- just a few months before the election -- into a premature end to the Labour era.

On Friday, it was confirmed that Gordon Brown will also give evidence to the Iraq inquiry before the general election, following pressure from the opposition to do so. His official spokesman said that Brown was "keen to take up the opportunity to state the case about why Britain was right to take the action it did in respect to Iraq." His appearance date is likely to be set for the end of February or the beginning of March.

Hot-Button Issues

In the election campaign, which has now begun, the hapless Brown will not just be running against his fresher Tory challenger David Cameron, as well as contending with devastating poll numbers and greedy bankers. One of his foes is a combative newspaper with a well-developed sense of what the public wants, a paper that has not backed an election loser in decades.

Eight million Britons read The Sun every day, and many of them are swing voters, the people Kavanagh wants to fire up between now and May 6, currently the most likely date of the election. "We will campaign for the Tories," he says, glowering. There are plenty of hot-button issues for the cover page, a list of all the things Labour failed to achieve. England has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Europe and the highest rate of heavy drinking among young people. There are stabbings in the inner cities and there is mass unemployment, particularly among young adults. Young people are still leaving state schools without being able to read or write, despite Blair's erstwhile rallying cry of "Education, education, education."

The United Kingdom is the last major industrialized country still in a recession, the deepest since 1945. The budget deficit exceeds 12 percent, the highest since the end of World War II. Rating agencies are threatening to downgrade Great Britain's credit rating. In the 30 months since Brown came into office, the British pound has lost a quarter of its value against the euro. Banks, once the pride of the British economy, are now despised by many for their role in the destruction of billions in assets.

In the increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan, 108 British soldiers died last year alone, while hundreds more were severely injured, partly because the military lacks the funds to buy more helicopters and better-armored vehicles.

Links to Murdoch

The Sun's journalistic campaign will have clear links to Cameron's campaign. First, the head of the Cameron campaign is a former Murdoch journalist. Second, Murdoch has apparently made a deal with Cameron, under which the media king will do what he can to ensure that the Conservative candidate moves into No. 10 Downing Street, and Cameron will then express his gratitude. If he becomes prime minister, Cameron would consider limiting the powers of media regulators, with whom Murdoch is often at odds.

A change is taking shape in Britain, but there is no sense of pleasant anticipation in the air. The mood in the country is too glum, and Cameron is no Blair, and certainly not a Barack Obama.

Every poll confirms a slim-to-solid lead for the Tories, even in traditional Labour strongholds like Wales and the Midlands. But because of the country's majority voting system, it won't be easy to transform a lead into a victory. In Labour's heyday, election districts were gerrymandered in such a way that the party still enjoys a massive built-in advantage today. This means that even if the Tories win many more votes than Labour, they could still lose the election. To claim a victory, the Conservatives would have to defend their current position in the parliament (193 seats) and add 133 new seats.

"We're fed up with Brown. All of us," Kavanagh told his readers. Even "Poppy, 19, from Somerset" is fed up. The model on the tabloid's infamous Page Three starts off by showing Sun readers her breasts, but then she makes a political confession: "We do need change -- but starting at the top."

No More Cool Britannia

Brown was once seen as a gifted chancellor of the exchequer. He made possible the Blair euphoria which gripped the nation from May 1997 onwards. Together, Brown and Blair cast out the party's socialist demons and reconciled its members with the market economy and big money. "New Labour" had arrived, and the economy was booming as it had never done before.

The era of "Cool Britannia" began. In art, fashion, architecture, music and the financial world, London became a radiant new global center, almost New York's equal. The city acquired a glittering skyline, and thanks to the real estate boom, even poor Britons suddenly felt rich. And even the long-maligned English cuisine began to improve.

As the keeper of state finances, Brown boasted that he had found the formula for protecting the country from an eternal "boom and bust" cycle. He promised that, thanks to New Labour, the economy would no longer go through up and down periods, but would only move up from then on.

Today Brown embodies the decline of the party. He took over the reins from Blair without standing for new elections, because he was not confident that he could win. By now, even the pro-Labour Guardian suggests that he step down before the election to make way for a new leader.

A Carp on Dry Land

At international crisis conferences, Brown has acquired the reputation of an intelligent expert. But his own people see him as awkward and inept. He has a habit of breathing through his mouth, so that on television he often looks like a carp on dry land, gasping for air. Brown is fond of using clichés and lacks charisma. The only emotion he arouses is pity -- as was the case recently when he forced his bulky body to go jogging in front of TV cameras.

David Cameron, who calls himself the "Heir to Blair," is a different story. Cameron is 43, the same age Blair was when he took over 10 Downing Street. He cuts a fine figure when he jogs. But apart from that, no one knows exactly what he really stands for. At least one of his positions is known: he doesn't like the European Union and would never introduce the euro.

He has no experience in running a large organization, and his origins are a burden to him in Britain's class-conscious society. Cameron, who comes from a wealthy family of bankers, went to the elite independent school Eton and has a posh, upper class accent. Brown likes to call him a "toff," a derogatory term from a member of the upper class. Many Britons consider Cameron to be the more suitable candidate, but they distrust the Tories. Since the days of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, they have had the reputation of being a party that takes away from the poor and gives to the rich. This fear is now Brown's last trump card.

Lean Times Ahead

Because of the country's precarious finances, the next government will be forced to take drastic measures. Taxes will go up while government services will shrink. Brown is shifting to the left, imposing higher taxes on the rich and special taxes on bankers. He has promised to borrow billions more until he has defeated the crisis.

Cameron warns that Brown's plans are suicidal, in light of the current debt burden. Instead, he invokes a leaner government and the strict budgetary discipline of the Thatcher days. Nevertheless, his designated chancellor of the exchequer is George Osborne, 38, who is such a lightweight that even Cameron supporters like Daily Telegraph columnist Tracy Corrigan deride him as a "pale, slightly floppy chap in a suit."