Something like that – although I can’t recall another story which went on that long – would persuade many people to sign up so they could see the story, particularly if it became a topic of water-cooler conversation.

Having said that, I don’t know this but I’d hazard a guess that a lot people who read the actual news on the internet – as opposed to interviews, features, columnists etc – choose the newspaper which they get at home. As The Times is going to give a free subscription to the website to people who already get The Times direct, they seem at least partially reliant on having columnists.

I say this, because I think it’s predominantly younger people who only read the newspaper on the internet and they are probably mostly not Times readers. So in a sense it comes down to whether people want to read Caitlin Moran, Giles Coren, and Robert Crampton. And I have my doubts that many people will be willing to pay a tenner a month for that.