The Daily Mail's Paul Dacre: hard on going soft?

Any glimmer of hope felt by the incoming editor of the Daily Mail that his predecessor will go quietly was snuffed out by Paul Dacre’s fang-baring performance in this week’s Spectator.

For those Guardian readers not willing to pay the subscription fee for the pleasure, it can handily be summed up as the almost septuagenarian newsman warning of dire consequences if Geordie Greig commits the “commercial and editorial suicide” of going soft on withdrawal.

After “28 years – and six prime ministers” it seems somehow fitting that the man who has done more to promote Brexit than any politician compares his life and times (favourably) to the future king.

Like the ancient mariner of Fleet Street knowing that things can never get better, Dacre dooms his far younger successor to roam forever in the twilight zone of tabloid newspapers rather than himself.