“Who polices the police?” asks Trevor Kavanagh column this morning. The answer to that question is that a free press sees money changing hands with public servants, seems to be Kavanagh’s main point. Guido isn’t so sure that will cut it.

One of the biggest digs in the whole column is at former Telegraph editor Will Lewis, who authorised payments for the stolen expenses files and is now at News International. He sits on the Management Standards Committee passing the police the ammunition about Sun hacks they need to try to recover their own tarnished reputation. Not popular in Wapping…

The events of this summer proved that the relationship between News International and the police was too close and that it impinged on the group being able to properly fulfil their role in the accountability process. That is not to say though that the police need to respond with anti-terror officers, dawn raids and what looks like a coordinated attempt to go for the Sun’s jugular. Why do journalists like Coulson, Brooks and the Guardian’s Amelia Hill get to meet the police by appointment when they are suspects? For the Sun it’s been very different:

“Wives and children have been humiliated as up to 20 officers at a time rip up floorboards and sift through intimate possessions, love letters and entirely private documents.”

Nobody is saying that any newspaper should be above the law, or that investigations should cease, but the Met are even more foolish than anyone already thought if they believe putting a bit of disproportionate stick about is going to shift the spotlight from their own failures, corruption and general incompetence.