This story first appeared in the autumn edition of Press Gazette – Journalism Quarterly published in September. To subscribe (from £19.90 a year) call 0845 073 9607. Please say if you would like your subscription to include the current edition.

By golly, it’s political, this Leveson business. Political on so many levels. Political on a narrow newspaper-office politics level, with Fleet Street managing editors jumping like circus fleas every time a columnist tries to mention the esteemed Lord Justice Brian.

It’s political in that stuffy, nastily-lit inquiry room at the Royal Courts of ‘Justice’. What a bent choice of venue. The Iraq Inquiry, which is looking into a far greater scandal, had to make do with the less loaded setting of the QE2 conference centre.