“What the hell is going on around here!?” That penny drop moment when even the Daily Mail and The Sun 'stopped believing'
One of the aspects in my previous article on Chris Pincher that I briefly alluded to but didn’t go into at any great length [because it required a separate article] is that if you followed some of the source-work and information, you’d notice much of the criticism aimed at Boris Johnson came from two very unlikely sources.
Namely, The Sun and The Mail on Sunday.
Regular readers who are familiar with my embargo [against The Sun] may have noticed the unusual step this page took in sourcing the recent Sun-appointee Noa Hoffman’s piece in my previous article relating to Chris Pincher.
There’s a reason for this that I’ll explain by reflecting on this poll from Conservative Home.
Regular readers who subscribe to this page will know that I like reading Conservative Home as a process of ‘knowing one's enemy’.
Described as the Conservative members’ bible, it offers a fabulous insight into what Conservatives are thinking right now - and regarding Boris Johnson, none of the feedback is especially positive.
Actually, you probably wouldn’t be far wrong if you assumed that everybody hates his guts.
It provides the Rosetta Stone in understanding why the Mail on Sunday and The Sun have turned on Johnson, however. More a convergence of forces.
It’s about ‘brand marketability’ - and provides some context as to what’s happening right now in Downing St.
Sales of newspapers have been decreasing for some time now - even without the pandemic, it was said to be a result of 'digital disruption'; or in other words the shift from reading physical newspapers to online.
In some cases, switching over from ‘legitimate’ media to independent outlets such as this page [for which this page is forever grateful] offers a different and/or more honest perspective to mainstream media coverage.
This much is true.
But.
When the pandemic 'hit', physical newspaper sales slumped by 39%.
In the case of The Sun, between 2020 and 2021, it saw a loss of over £200 million in profits.
Between 2021 and 2022, it saw its turnover fall from £324m to £318.6m.
In the case of the Daily Mail [and broadly, the DMGT group of newspapers], its print advertising revenues 'plunged' by over 70%. Up to December 2020, print revenue for the paper dropped by 15%.
The Audit Bureau of Circulations calculated that print circulation for the Daily Mail - as of February 2022 - had fallen to its lowest in a hundred years, selling less than 900,000 a day, noting curiously that, “the Sun, Times and Telegraph titles which have all chosen to keep their ABC circulations private since the start of 2020.”
[It’s worth noting that The Guardian and Observer also keep their ABC circulations private, however]
By May 2022, paid single copies of the Daily Mail had ebbed to as low as 820,390 - there is a noticeable correlation between the drop in sales in papers like The Sun and The Daily Mail and the approval ratings of Boris Johnson [up to June 2022].
For example:
In January, the Daily Mail ran with the headline that Britain had lost all sense of proportion in its interest in the ‘Partygate’ scandal. Meanwhile, just several days before, Boris Johnson’s approval ratings dropped to their lowest since he became Prime Minister in July 2019.
As noted, in February 2022, was the month the Mail’s circulation dropped to its lowest in 100 years. Coincidentally, this was the month that Boris Johnson committed to his first attempt at a relaunch in the wake of the ‘Partygate’ scandal.
The New European reports as of July that Lord Rothermere - the owner of the Daily Mail - had instructed his editors to turn on Boris Johnson stating that the paper has, “lost touch” with popular opinion.
This, it is suspected, is the reason why the Mail on Sunday [sister-paper to the Daily Mail] went with this front page relating to the Chris Pincher saga:
By Monday, however, the Mail had changed tack with commentary provided by “clown prince” [c. Dominic Cummings] Dan Hodges. Despite his previous article where Hodges stated:
“The Pincher case stinks. And the responsibility for that rests with Boris Johnson”
By Monday, Hodges was saying:
“Boris is still the best man to lead Britain.”
Into the week though, The Sun, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and The Times, each went with major stories focussing on the matter of Chris Pincher’s appointment despite the previous Downing St. line suggesting Boris Johnson knew nothing of the allegations surrounding sexual assault.
Even the BBC went with a significant story relating to the matter, much of which was central to Monday’s article on this very page:
By Tuesday, the Sun and The Daily Mail converged:
So what is happening here?