Toby Young Toby Young

Status Anxiety: The shame of not being hacked

Toby Young suffers from Status Anxiety

issue 05 February 2011

Like many of my colleagues in the media, I’m shocked by the News of the World phone-hacking scandal. As the list of those targeted by the newspaper grows longer and longer, my sense of outrage deepens. What were the papers’ executives thinking? Did it not even occur to them to tap my phone?

OK, OK, I’m not an A-lister. I’m not even on the B-list. My ­status ­hovers somewhere between C-list and D-list (on a good day). But if you look at the people queuing up to sue the paper, some of them are below even me in the celebrity pecking order.

George Galloway I can understand. He was the leader of a political party at the time, even if he isn’t now. And Bob Crow I can forgive. After all, he’s a communist thug bent on the destruction of the British way of life.

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