Amol Rajan has revealed he knew when taking over The Independent newspaper he would be its last editor.

Writing in The Spectator today, he said: "I knew, the minute my job was first mooted, on the steps of San Francesco church in the sun-drenched, mafia-infested Sicilian town of Noto, that I would be the last editor of the (printed) Independent.

"This fact was reinforced at 17.21 on my first day, when the daily email from our circulation department put the figure for our paid-for circulation at 42,000.