During December and early January, I received almost daily emails from the Telegraph offering me a three-month digital subscription for £1 – which is equivalent to just over 1p a day. The latest offer I have received is four months of the full digital versions of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph for just £3 – equivalent to 2.5p a day, which is just 1% of the weekday cover price.

The Telegraph knows I am a regular reader of the paper, and its telesales force has tried on numerous occasions to sell me a print subscription.

I have always declined, partly because I am happy to pay for my paper on a daily basis, even if it costs me a bit more, and also because I know several reasons why news retailers prefer to be paid in cash for counter sale copies, rather than with small pieces of paper.

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Even so, I was tempted by the 1p-a-day digital offer, not because I thought I could put up with reading long articles from the Telegraph on my 10-inch tablet, or because it offered the prospect of saving more than £200 on print issues over three months.