Have the Mail papers given up on the election and Brexit?

“How long until we can order death pills?” That was one of the headlines in Peter Hitchens’ Mail On Sunday column last weekend, and it certainly seems to have captured the glum mood at the Derry Street offices of the Mail papers and their behemoth website as Labour’s poll leads continue to hold.

The true-blue, Brexit-loving Mail group is suspiciously out of sorts these days, and not surprisingly. For years, it has been instructing its readers to ignore the evidence of their own eyes and bank accounts and vote Conservative. Now, with its circulations and influence dwindling, polls indicate that many of those same readers are going to ignore its advice and vote Labour, Lib Dem or Reform on July 4.

On Tuesday, as the Tories and Labour traded blows over tax and the NHS and Greater Manchester Police staged a crucial intervention – of which more shortly – the top story on Mail Online’s homepage was former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell and her F1 boss husband winning planning permission for a pool at their mansion.

On Thursday, as the botched Diane Abbott investigation threatened to knock Labour off course, the Daily Mail’s entire front page was devoted to the 50-year-old case of murderous aristocrat Lord Lucan; briefly a national obsession in the 1970s but forgotten now. Will the truth about the Bay City Rollers be next?

We must wait to see whether this weekend’s Mail On Sunday is equally keen to change the subject, but there’s every reason for it to observe a period of shamed silence.

No paper has embarrassed itself more over the Angela Rayner non-story, to which the MoS has devoted thousands of words and four front-page splashes since late March. No person – not even the hapless James Daly – has embarrassed themselves more over Raynergate than excitable MoS commentator Dan Hodges, who previously wasted everyone’s time with another risible scoop, Beergate/Currygate.

When Labour’s deputy leader was cleared by both GMP and HMRC, Hodges posted this on Twitter: “Angela Rayner has got away with it. For now. But her lies, hypocrisy and evasion will catch up with her in the end.” Laughable stuff, and best read in the voice of a Scooby-Doo villain.

Will Raynergate be missing from the MoS this weekend? It does have a habit of skipping some interesting stuff, like parts of a Deltapoll survey it commissioned last week.

Editor Ted Verity only found room for the bit that showed that having Boris Johnson as prime minister would see Labour’s lead cut to a mere 16 points – still landslide territory – from 22 points. But more interesting was age group polling on the question “would you vote to rejoin the EU?”

The Baby Boomers, born 1946-64, were the only age group quoted to be still in favour of staying out of the EU (Rejoin 46% Stay out 52% Wouldn’t vote 2%). Gen X (born 1965-79) were in favour of Rejoin by 51% to 45%, with 4% saying they wouldn’t vote.But among people who are 44 years old and younger, things look very one-sided. Millennials (born 1980-93) stacked up 64%:32%:4%. And Gen Z (1995-2013) were a massive 77%:9%:14%.

When it comes to the future of Britain, I suspect these huge margins for Rejoin among younger voters might prove to be a more significant story than Angela Rayner’s council house, Keir Starmer’s takeaway and – yes – Geri Halliwell’s swimming pool… even if they find Lord Lucan in it.