The Daily Mail used to pride itself on setting agendas – or at least knowing what the agenda was. So there was surprise in its offices last Friday, a day after Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage exchanged fire.

Rather than a typical Mail savaging of Labour or an examination of Reform’s dodgy sums, the paper’s front-page lead story was an exclusive interview with Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who has taken the so-called “natural party of government” down to fourth in polls. Even worse, the tin-eared Tory was displaying her lack of political acumen by calling Labour and Reform’s plans to scrap the two-child benefit cap “a race to the bottom” – a remarkable way to describe something that will lift nearly half a million children out of poverty.