It's quite something to behold, the Tory press in full blood. Not since 1992, and its concerted assault on Neil Kinnock, have the rightwing newspapers joined together in such a sustained and undisguised attempt to destroy a figure in British public life. If anything the sight is more breathtaking this time, with the front pages of today's Mail, Telegraph, Sun and Express all training their firepower on Nick Clegg. While the 1992 operation to destroy Kinnock was the culmination of nearly a decade of warfare against the then Labour leader, the "Get Clegg" offensive has been assembled in a matter of days.

At first glance, you'd assume such an onslaught would prove lethal to the Liberal Democrats. How can they survive their leader being outed as soft on immigration, a wobbler on Afghanistan, a quasi-foreigner guilty of a "Nazi slur on Britain" and a recipient of dodgy cash?

The answer is that these charges are bound to do some damage, taking the shine off the gleaming image Clegg constructed in last week's TV debate. Those voters drawn to the Lib Dem leader as a wholly unsullied outsider will be disappointed to discover that he once worked as a lobbyist for the Royal Bank of Scotland and that he claimed his full ration of second-home expenses, including for a cake pan and the pruning of his plum trees. It will be especially harmful if any of these topics are followed up and form the basis of questions to Clegg in tonight's second TV debate.

But the damage might not be as devastating as the Telegraph, Mail and co hope. For one thing, the ferocity of their attack is a kind of compliment to Clegg – a sign that these papers, which used to mock the Lib Dems as lentil-munchers on the fringes, now take the party seriously. "Welcome to first-division football, Mr Clegg" as the Mail's Quentin Letts put it on a radio discussion today.

Second, the collective Fleet Street broadside paradoxically confirms much that Clegg has argued. It suggests a degree of panic, as if the Lib Dem leader really does pose a threat to the status quo: why else would the entire Tory establishment be so determined to destroy him? Clegg says the old political system is rotten – and, as if to vindicate his words, the old political system, in the form of the national press, rises up to strike him down.

Earlier this week the former Sun editor, David Yelland, described the extent to which the Murdoch papers and others are deeply invested in a Cameron victory and are trembling at the prospect of a political force in Britain that they don't control. Some may have thought that a conspiracy theory too far – until they saw today's clutch of front pages.

Clegg might also be saved too much harm by the changing nature of the media and of readers themselves. Maybe there was a time when readers would have taken a story like the Telegraph splash – with its banner headline evocative of a 9/11 type catastrophe – at face value. But now they can see what the papers are up to – and they can respond. Twitter has been the site of instant mockery, with a hashtag #nickcleggsfault, running a string of ironic gags in which the Lib Dem is blamed for every conceivable ill, from missed penalties in Euro 96 to a stubbed toe.

The papers have struck hard today but they may have over-reached. If the Lib Dems do as well on 6 May as the current polls suggest, it will not just be Labour and the Conservatives that will look diminished. The limits of the influence of the Tory press will have been exposed too.