Mr Rusbridger has no more right to be cross than any other middle-class malefactor

Last week the Press Complaints Commission delivered two judgments which, taken together, seem highly perplexing. It exonerated the News of the World for paying £10,000 to a convicted criminal who was implicated in the alleged plot to kidnap Victoria Beckham. And it censured the Guardian for paying £720 to a former criminal for writing an article about life in prison alongside Jeffrey Archer. As a result of this second ruling, the paper’s editor, Alan Rusbridger, has reportedly blown several gaskets and has had to be soothed in a darkened room.

The News of the World’s escape is fortunate, to say the least. Readers may remember the case. The paper’s legendary sleuth Mazher Mahmood (he who likes dressing up as a sheikh) asked a 27-year-old Kosovan parking attendant called Florim Gashi to find him a story. Florim did. He came up with a plan to kidnap Victoria Beckham, and produced tapes in which he and his pals are heard discussing the idea in a rather lacklustre way. Some people may think that it would have been an extremely good idea if Victoria had been permanently removed from our shores, but that is beside the point. There was, it seems, no plan to kidnap her. Nevertheless, acting on information supplied to them by the News of the World and Florim, the police swooped on the suspected gang and banged up five innocent men for several months until a judge brought an end to the trial. I must say it is very difficult to see how the News of the World was not guilty of something rather serious, though, as I wrote several weeks ago, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service were equally at fault in bringing a prosecution.