The real hacking scandal? That police, corporations and insurers are at it too

In setting up the Leveson Inquiry, David Cameron made a major mistake. He accepted the premise – so powerfully advocated by Murdoch’s rivals – that hacking was a problem because the Dirty Digger was so wicked. The inquiry should have been into the black market for illegal information, of which the hacking scandal exposed a tiny part. Hacking is done by skip tracers, a phrase you never heard in the inquiry because it acknowledges the existence of a wider industry. Buyers are insurance companies, policemen, cuckolded husbands – anyone. The Spectator is (as far as I’m aware) the only publication to have drawn attention to the fact by running a piece by a reformed hacker (here) explaining how his market worked. This narrative didn’t suit anyone. The Guardian and the BBC (who led the prosecution) wanted to take out a commercial rival – Rupert Murdoch – and carefully set the parameters of the debate.