Chatter about Paul Dacre’s retirement is nothing new in Derry Street, the Kensington headquarters of Daily Mail publisher DMGT.

Britain’s longest-serving and best-paid newspaper editor turned 65 in 2013 and has had bouts of time off on doctors’ orders after heart surgery. Dacre’s rivals and detractors inside and outside DMGT were repeatedly frustrated by his apparent determination to one day leave the newsroom feet first.

In recent weeks the the rumour mill spun into overdrive, however. Dacre’s loyal assistant was on the hunt for property in her native North East, according to canteen gossip. This was taken the surest sign yet that the feared, respected and disdained editor was about to take his bows.

So it proved. Yet Dacre’s decision to move upstairs to become chairman of DMGT’s consumer publishing division Associated Newspaper poses more questions than it answers for the Daily Mail.

His successor has now been named by Jonathan Harmsworth, Lord Rothermere, who owns 18pc of DMGT but all the voting rights under an unusual share structure that cost the company its premium stock market listing six years ago.

Geordie Greig, 57-year-old editor of the Mail on Sunday, social companion of Lord and Lady Rothermere, shareholder in the Evening Standard and bitter enemy of Dacre received the nod today.