Rejoiner petulance hits 11 on the Coogan scale

The sound of Maitlis's foot stomping was audible in Luton as she received her bollocking from her BBC bosses, and in a major fit of petulance refused to go on stage last night. Her bollocking, of course, was for the biased, partisan and untrue editorial she had used the Newsnight show to deliver. She cannot have expected such a swift public put-down from her own bosses; even with a flood of complaints, BBC internal processes usually last several weeks, with the findings sneaked out on a Rizla pushed under the door. This time there was panic at Reith Towers; Oliver Dowden, the Culture Secretary, is just biding his time to announce the decriminalisation of the licence fee. The only variable is the timing of the effective date, though many TV tax payers will stop paying as soon as the announcement is made.

Rejoiner petulance isn't confined to the BBC. Though today only the Guardian, Mirror and the i paper have Cummings on the front pages, Sky news and the BBC's 'Today' are gamely trying to brace the story's collapsing legs. This collapse has, if anything, infuriated even further the hysterical blow-hard rejoiners in the media. They're used to getting their own way, and like infants in a tantrum find it very hard to accept that this time they're not.

The events of the past few days do raise a very serious national security question. We all know the media are in a dire financial position due to the effects of the Wuhan virus. Would a foreign state or group of states facing defeat and humiliation in existential international trade talks be prepared to throw a few hundred millions at key players in their opponent's mass media to game the playing field? The sudden and co-ordinated assault by the MSM, including the Telegraph, in an effort to destroy the team at Number 10 over what is in effect a triviality hint that factors beyond innate newsworthiness could have been at play. The good guys in the security services - and there must be some loyal to the democratically elected government - should do some discreet digging.

Of course most of the reptiles would have used their organs to try to sabotage the final stage of Brexit in any event. But as even Private Eye, which used to keep an eye on the rest of the reptiles, has now joined the establishment vivarium, we have no popular watchdog. As they say

Thank God one cannot bribe or twist
the honest British journalist
But seeing what the man will do
unbribed there is no reason to