Once it was accepted by everyone that there was an entity known as "the Tory press". The old barons in the last century may have played fast and loose within the Conservative fold, but they never kicked it hard enough to cause any real problems.

Gradually, however, the newspapers of the right have detached themselves from any semblance of party allegiance.

Now they have no care to preserve the Tory party at all costs. They wish to refashion it and feel emboldened enough to rage at what they believe are its shortcomings apparently heedless of the ramifications.

Never has this been more obvious than in the reaction to the budget, and the furore over the enforced resignation of the party's co-treasurer, Peter Cruddas.

The Daily Mail has given David Cameron the biggest kicking of all in the past week. But the Daily Telegraph and the Sun have put on their hobnail boots too.

It would appear that the true blue press is true only to itself, and certainly bluer than the Tories that they helped, without much enthusiasm, into power.

Not that Cameron achieved sole power, of course. He had to settle for a coalition with the Lib Dems and that failure to secure victory is part of this story of newspaper disillusion with him and his administration. As far as the editors of the right-wing papers are concerned, Cameron has let them down. Not that they expected much of him anyway.

It was easy to detect a faint-heartedness among the trio during the general election campaign, and they have never warmed to him since. He just isn't their kind of man.

The editors and columnists of the Mail, Telegraph and Sun hanker for the meritocratic virtues that transformed the Conservatives in the Thatcher era. They stood four-square with her as she dispensed with the grouse moor crew who had risen through privilege. Now they think Cameron is too close to that old style of Tory.

Worse, they believe him guilty of grafting on to his own privileged background a concern for touchy-feely conservatism, tinged with concern for the environment, that make editors like the Mail's Paul Dacre scream with rage.

The language employed in today's leading article in the Mail was hugely significant. "The stench of hypocrisy is almost overpowering," it said.

Though it called him as "a highly capable prime minister in many ways" – a calculated qualification – it pointed to his "worrying track record of appointing questionable people to important jobs".

More telling still was the reference to Cameron's "soignée wife … playing hostess at cosy dinner parties at No 10". It is a class-based insult, a criticism rooted in the Camerons' background that Mail readers could instantly grasp.

A second Mail leader then laid into the chancellor, George Osborne, for "the outrageous "granny tax". It was a reminder of the Mail's post-budget front page: "Osborne picks the pockets of pensioners."

That condemnation was echoed in the Sun, whose its own hostile reaction to the budget included a page one cartoon lampooning Osborne with an accusation that he had "clobbered the masses of hard-grafting Brits in a budget that boosted super-earners".

Once again, it was a message about social class distinction. The Sun was delivering a broadside by suggesting that an old Etonian could not possibly grasp the problems of the working class. The Sun can be accused of hypocrisy on that count, but its readers are unlikely to bother about that, so the paper felt confident in championing their cause.

The Daily Telegraph, which saw the "granny tax" as "a £3bn 'stealth' raid on middle-class pensioners", also played the class card, pitching its audience against the narrow upper-middle class strata peopled by Cameron and Osborne.

By contrast, the Times has been more conciliatory towards Cameron. But for how long? Note the latest set of tweets by its proprietor, Rupert Murdoch.

Even if it was only natural that he should boost the Sunday Times for breaking the cash-for-access story, it was possible to detect an anti-Cameron agenda. He wrote: "What was Cameron thinking? No one, rightly or wrongly, will believe his story." Then came: "Cameron should just have followed history and flogged some seats in the Lords."

The Tory press? Think of it instead as the Thatcher press – a group of reactionary newspaper editors and proprietors who just cannot find a successor to the old lady.