Why should Tom Watson be given a peerage and not Paul Dacre?

Much of this is not Liz Truss’s fault. The great big adjustment all over the West is that the era of low interest rates is now over. This is causing a crisis because most people, businesses and governments – and, we now discover, most pension funds – planned their finances on the basis that the era would go on for ever. It was bad luck that this hit markets just as Britain got its new prime minister. However, the Trussties undoubtedly overreached. Having been caught out, they are forced to become the sober-sides they previously mocked. Having been punished for peremptorily sacking Tom Scholar at the Treasury, they have had to back off Antonia Romeo as his successor, because she has no Treasury experience, and put in the dependable James Bowler who was at Alistair Darling’s side when Northern Rock collapsed; and so on. This is a government of marketeers, flummoxed by markets seeking orthodoxy.

It sounded like an exciting game of Consequences. The Duke of Sussex, Lady Lawrence (mother of Stephen), Sir Elton John, Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost said they will take the Daily Mail to court for alleged phone hacking. The leading lawyers in the case, Hamlins, put out a press release accusing Associated Newspapers, the Mail’s publishers, of grave crimes and wrongs, but no legal papers have been filed. This is rather unusual. Why the rush over these historical claims? The answer lies in another press release, issued by Hacked Off, the group backed by the late Max Mosley. It announced the same news and added that ‘If phone hacking did occur at Mail titles, and Paul Dacre [the Mail editor-in-chief] is found to have been aware of it, he would have knowingly misled the Leveson Inquiry under oath. Any plans to give him a seat in the House of Lords should be suspended until the conclusion of these claims and any subsequent investigations.’