Supreme court judges are “Enemies of the people” (Daily Mail) and Brexit rebel MPs are “mutineers”, with front-page pictures added for identification and vilification purposes (the Telegraph). But such problems, of course, are not just about the nature of the assault: they also tell us something about the newspapers that launch them.
Tony Gallagher, editor of the Sun, rowed swiftly to tweet rescue of the Telegraph’s mutinous editorial crew last week. He couldn’t see that anything they had done was wrong – which is interesting because Tony went from the Mail to edit the Telegraph before emerging on top of the Bun. In short, either he’s covered the spectrum – or the spectrum itself has begun to fold into a single snarl.
There once was a time when the Telegraph gave readers a unique insight of the manners, preoccupations and mindset of the Conservative party. No more. Now, seemingly, it’s a bludgeon seeking to impose uniformity in the distant, disconnected name of the brothers Barclay.
