Do Not Arise, Sir Paul

Today, the Queen’s Birthday Honours have been announced. And, once again, to no surprise at all, there is no gong for the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, despite his having occupied the editor’s chair at the Daily Mail for well over 20 years. Gone are the days when the likes of his predecessor David English could look forward to a knighthood. It is, for Dacre, an open wound.

Why the f*** shouldn't I have a knighthood, c***?!? Er, with the greatest of respect, Mr Jay

After all, Simon Jenkins got a K, and so did Max “Hitler” Hastings, and they’re both very much still in evidence. So every time the honours are dished out, and the Vagina Monologue comes away empty handed, there has to be a suitably vicious attack on the system in the Mail. “After the hobnobbing, starstruck Hague hands Tinseltown's queen Angelina Jolie a gong” is today’s example.

“Angelina Jolie has been made a dame by William Hague. The starstruck Foreign Secretary, who has spent most of the week at the Hollywood actress’s side, bestowed the surprise accolade on her as part of the Queen’s birthday honours. The pair have been working closely together at a summit on rape in London – despite the escalating political and military crises in Iraq, Syria and Ukraine” whines the Mail.

And this is mostly speculation: who nominates whom for awards is not disclosed, Ms Jolie has been given an honorary award – as a citizen of the United States, she cannot be made a “real” Dame – and her work with William ‘Ague goes back a long way, as in a long way before this week. Plus it’s good to see the Mail denigrating the campaign to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.

But that doesn’t move the Mail: “The Foreign Secretary has seemed bewitched by the actress all week, with he and David Cameron looking like awestruck schoolboys when they welcomed her to Britain on Tuesday. Mr Hague gushed that she was ‘a pleasure to work with’, and said her ‘power to speak to the whole world’ and his ‘levers of decision-making and action’ were a formidable combination” it snarked.

The hostility-drenching did not stop at Ms Jolie: “Best-selling author Hilary Mantel becomes a dame for a lifetime of service to literature. The popular writer, 61 ... already has a CBE. She has also been controversial, once claiming the Duchess of Cambridge was portrayed as a ‘shop window mannequin’ whose only purpose was to breed”. Snot fair! She’s already got a gong!

And predictable that the Dacre doggies are still going on about Ms Mantel for bringing up the way the media – like the Mail – treats those like the Duchess of Cambridge. She was writing about how the likes of the Mail behave, but rather than tell readers this, there was a typically spiteful barrage of abuse instead. And, with the latest fruitless episode in Dacre’s search for a gong, today brings another.

Except that, this time, it is William ‘Ague who gets blamed for Dacre’s unpopularity.