The Daily Express has fallen on hard times.

For 30 years, it’s been under the shadow of its great rival, the Daily Mail. Under David English, the Mail brilliantly reinvented itself. By contrast, Beaverbrook’s flagship has slipped further and further behind.

Today’s front page lead story showed graphically the decline in the Express’s journalistic standards. It claimed house prices are set to soar for a decade. This bold claim was based on a desperately thin quote from a firm of estate agents – who are hardly likely to warn of an impending housing market crash. The logic seemed to go no further than: people need houses, nothing can stop the boom. The Express didn’t bother to provide analysis or statistics to back its claims.

The only thing to say in favour of this story is that it’s not about Princess Diana. The Express runs a Diana conspiracy story once a week.