Burying bad news

"Why didn't the Daily Mail put the jailing of Jo Cox's murderer on its front page?", asks Jane Martinson, writing for the Guardian. Of course, the answer is so obvious that it hardly needs to be stated. Put simply, it's because the Mail knows it's got the MP's blood on its hands. As Billy Bragg noted, if you're waiting for the rag (and others of its ilk) to demand to know how white supremacist Thomas Mair was radicalised, don't hold your breath.

Even by the usual barrel-scraping standards of the Mail's editorial policy, though, the decision to avoid mentioning the verdict of the trial until page 30 was extraordinary (lest we forget, Cox's murder was the first of a sitting British MP since Ian Gow in 1990). As was the brazen and frankly astonishing attempt to exonerate Mair of at least some of the blame by pointing the finger at immigrants and even Cox herself.

One of these days I might stop being staggered at the depths to which Paul Dacre and chums will stoop - but not just yet.