While journalistic relations with the police are in the headlines, the usual hand-wringers should pause before passing judgement. Whilst slipping coppers cash is morally dubious, is it worse than using what the recent Filkin report described as “long-standing tactics”? The Metropolitan Police report into “The Ethical Issues Arising From The Relationship Between Police And Media” was clear, “Flirting is often interlinked with alcohol. Designed to get you to drop your defences and say far more than you intended. Be careful.” Such tactics are not unknown to hackettes from papers that consider themselves to be much more upmarket, almost on a different moral plane to the Sun…

A hypothetical dilemma for you to consider, which is less ethical: performing what the tabloid papers call a “sex-act” on a police officer for information, or paying for it? Normally less of a trail left with the former, if the evidence is swallowed…