The new political week picks up exactly where last week left off, with much of the right-wing press waging a furious rearguard effort to distract attention from David Cameron’s cowardly attempt to scupper the televised leaders’ debates.

The Telegraph in particular is hitting back at the near-universal condemnation of the Prime Minister with nearly the same intensity with which they defended themselves against ex-columnist Peter Oborne’s devastating accusations of compromised editorial standards relating to the newspaper’s coverage of HSBC, an important advertiser.

But now some in the Tory-friendly media have outdone themselves, accusing those who criticise David Cameron’s weaselling out of the television debates and who want to see such debates permanently enshrined in the British political calendar of harbouring “totalitarian” instincts.

Graeme Archer writes in his latest Telegraph column:

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