It was a good Brexit for the Daily Mail Group. The flagship Daily Mail not only backed the Leave vote on June 23 to the full extent of its Toryness, it ditched Leave leader, Michael Gove, husband of columnist Sara Vine, and endorsed Theresa May for leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister, even though she was a low-key remainer.

It was another timely reminder that hypocrisy is essential for a media business that wants to remain on top of its opposition day after day, with readers and with those it seeks to influence. And so it was for the paper’s long-time editor Paul Dacre. The vote and the Mail’s part in it vindicated his Euroscepticism, even if he was exposed as a hypocrite during the campaign for receiving tens of thousands of pounds of EU subsidies for his hobby farm in the heart of verdant rural England.

But that was a story to be ignored and the likes of Mr Dacre has never let a story like that divert him from his true purpose, protecting Britain from the dastardly folk in Brussels and keeping the Mail ahead of all those pesky rivals (aka The Sun and Daily Express and Telegraph) nipping at his heels every morning.