Worse than hacks

OK, we get it. We’re scum. Lowest of the low. If nothing else comes from the Leveson inquiry, at least the British public may be assured that its views of the press were right all along: as poll after poll has shown, I and my comrades in ink enjoy a social standing somewhere south of traffic wardens, tax collectors and dumpers of cats into wheelie bins.

We have lived with it for so long that, frankly, a few intercepted phone messages will not make much difference. So be it. Nevertheless, I would embrace my stigma a little more readily without the hypocrisy of that same British public, so widely in thrall to ‘the scoop’ that most of them will play dirtier than I ever have, simply to be part of it.

During more than 30 years in print, radio and television, I have seen unqualified fools muscling in upon a trade that, despite themselves, they find devilishly cool.