The final West Australian copy of this newspaper rolled off the Perth presses controlled by Kerry Stokes last week, the result of some thin-skinned retribution from the billionaire, which a Seven spokesman maintains was solely a “commercial decision”.

It also coincided with The West Australian’s stand-in editor Chris Dore giving his best errand boy effort: “Independent, Always? How about avaricious, hypocritical, incoherent. Always.”