It's probably fair to say that the re-election of James Murdoch onto the board of BSkyB doesn't seem like the biggest scandal facing the media at the moment. With the shocking allegations of abuse at the BBC and the issuing of 'privacy claims' over alleged hacking at the Daily Mirror, the fact that Murdoch remains as a director of one of Britain's biggest companies could easily have gone unnoticed.
What has unfolded since TMZ exploded the bombshell of a naked Prince Harry tells you everything about the scale of the problem that Leveson has become, with venal politicians and self-obsessed special interest groups determined to come out on top against a once-proud now-cowed print media... and hang the long-term consequences for democracy and freedom of the press.
How different the world looked for the Murdochs last Christmas. The BSkyB decision had just been withdrawn from Vince Cable. It now looked as though their bid would go through on the nod. Once approved this would allow the Murdoch dynasty to straddle Britain's media like a gloating colossus, dwarfing the BBC and all other commercial competitors. Politically they would be untouchable.
The existence of the internet means that people will publish what they want when they want to. If we enforce restrictions on what we can publish in this country, people will write online blogs and write for foreign publications. If our most reliable UK sources are choked off, people will be forced to rely on publications that are less reputable, and perhaps even illegal.