Newspapers are enjoying a surge in popularity, but they're struggling to survive | Simon Jenkins

At last it is MPs who are asking questions. On Wednesday, after parliament’s long Easter holiday, the new Labour leader, Keir Starmer, asked five questions in the House of Commons. But the questions – about statistics, supplies, tests, care homes – have been around for weeks. Ministers have been challenged, comparisons drawn, mendacities exposed. Democratic accountability had functioned, sort of. But not by MPs, by the press.

I do not often bang the drum for my industry. Newspapers are institutionally smug. When the coronavirus mess is over, I doubt if