Alan, the whole comments page is a fraud. This is how it works:

The Mail is only allowed to legally go so far. So they hint at something, let the public say what they want to say, and leave it up there for everyone to see – hilighted by ratings.

However, it is fraudlent:

For many years they moderated anything left out/

The ratings system. If the comments aren’t following their policy, and people are going against the mail, they quite simply delete all of the comments and start a fresh.

Online votes. If the votes don’t follow their policy, they delete them as well

Try voting on a comment; clear your cookies, and refresh the page. Your vote will have disappeared.

All I can assume from this is that, the DM decide on their position and then set the ratings for each comment depending on the length of time since it was posted and how well it reflects DM opinion.