TORY Middle England must be feeling pretty disorientated these days. Over these past few weeks, the traditional voice of the well-to-do conservative suburbs of the Home Counties has abruptly changed its soundtrack.

For many years, the Daily Mail stood in the vanguard of hard-right hatred for the European Union. It screamed daily abuse at the treachery of deranged Remoaners intent on turning the UK into a Franco-German colony.

It denounced High Court judges as enemies of the people for daring to uphold the right of Parliament to make the final decision on leaving the EU. It berated Tory moderates as traitors to the UK for expressing doubts over the wisdom of a hard Brexit.

The newspaper is still in full flow but it’s now decrying self-serving saboteurs and backstabbing plotters. At the weekend its journalists sneered at the “lemming letter club” of Tory hard Brexiteers and reported that these “desperate sharks” are struggling to get the required 48 signatures to trigger a vote of no confidence in Theresa May. Across the shires, stockbrokers and landowners must have felt like they had switched on Radio 3 to hear hip hop blasting out.

The sudden shift in direction is partly explained by the appointment of a new editor. Paul Dacre, the millionaire owner of multiple luxury properties including a sporting estate in the West Highlands, was kicked upstairs into a harmless sinecure a few months ago. His replacement was the less well-known Geordie Greig, a Remain supporter in 2016.

However, the change of policy seems to me to be a sure sign that even some of the most right-wing elements of the British establishment are beginning to get cold feet over the prospect of a hard Brexit. The shift may also reflect a fear in some circles that the traditional party of the rich and powerful may be on the brink of a catastrophic rupture, opening the door for Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell to stroll into Downing Street while Scotland marches out of the United Kingdom.

The change in the Mail’s position shows that even the most dyed-in-the-wool newspapers are subject to the influences of the world outside. Especially in a ruthlessly competitive marketplace, political principles can be expendable under pain of death.

I haven’t followed social media that closely over these past few days since Johnston Press went into administration. I do believe, though, that there has been much celebration among sections of the independence movement. Understandable perhaps, given the role The Scotsman played in the 2014 referendum. But wrong, in my opinion, on several counts.

Newspapers, like them or loathe them, employ people. The livelihoods of more than 2000 workers and their families are directly dependent on Edinburgh-based Johnston Press. As well as journalists, it also employs clerical workers, receptionists, cleaners, photographers, illustrators, printers, advertising staff and drivers. And they in turn help support many other jobs through their spending.

So, I’d suggest all of us in the independence movement might want to stop and think hard about the insecurity of thousands of families before gloating on social media over the crisis. And if that’s not a convincing argument to some, we should also note that The Scotsman itself is not the same newspaper it was in 2014. Editorial changes have taken place there, too. The current editor, Frank O’Donnell, is no hard-line Unionist, but a skilled editor and journalist who keeps his politics well under wraps. Under his editorship, the newspaper has stated emphatically that it will take a neutral stance on independence, and in any future Scottish or UK parliamentary elections.

I suspect senior executives at the company had their fingers badly burned in 2014 when they allowed a newspaper that had played a strong historical role in championing devolution under the hostile Thatcher government to become a lapdog of the British establishment. And no matter how well-intentioned the current editor, it may now be too late to ever shake off that stigma, even if the newspaper survives the current crisis.

I should make it clear that I’m no great fan of the mainstream media. There is a gaping hole at the heart of the democratic process when wealthy individuals and powerful companies are able to determine the outcome of referendums and elections through their control over mass communications channels.

Nor do I accept the BBC’s view of itself as a paragon of impartiality that towers above the grubby business of political conflict. Never mind the Scottish referendum – anyone old enough to remember the miners’ strike knows that when the chips are down, the elites at the top of our public broadcaster will come to the aid of the establishment.

We need more than ever a diverse press, and it is to the credit of the

US-based multinational Newsquest that it has given a voice in the newsagents to an openly pro-independence newspaper in the shape of The National. I’m sure its launch was a business decision rather than a political one, but it would be hard to imagine certain British-based media institutions tolerating a publication that offers such a different view of Scotland and the world.

Meanwhile, it seems Johnston Press has been saved, at least for the time being, by structural changes. It is apparently now owned by a newly formed organisation called JPI Media. Hopefully jobs, titles and employees’ pensions will now be safe.

The company is a victim of the seismic shift over the last 15 years in the way news is published, read and distributed. But it should be a salutary lesson for a Scottish-based media company. This is now a highly politicised country in which half of the population – and a majority of those of working age – support independence. That is not reflected in our mainstream media. And until it is, there are income streams out there being lost.

People can get rid of politicians, but we have little influence over newspaper proprietors or editors, other than to stop funding them. And therein lies at least one reason underlying the crisis in the Scottish newspaper industry.