The ringmaster may change; our circus will stay His face was contorted. "You can't sit there," he yelled. The twenty-something flunky was a study in fury - and fear. I enquired as to the nature of my crime. I had arrived just in time for Tony Blair's leadership speech at the Labour party conference and sat in the first available seat in the press area. I had my invitation card. As editor of a political weekly, I was hardly an interloper. "Can't you see?" the young man continued. That's Rebekah Wade's seat! I found myself a perch at the back. A few minutes later the red-headed goddess - then editor of The Sun newspaper (and before she had acquired her husband's name Brooks) - arrived at her throne, her path cleared by apparatchiks. I recalled this incident of a decade or so ago as I, like everyone else in Britain's political-media village, watched as Murdochs senior and junior testified this week to the Leveson inquiry into press standards. Beyond the "who said what to whom" narrative, beyond the search for villains, what does this affair say about the nature of public life in the UK? How rotten is our establishment? The phone-hacking scandal, which gave rise to the inquiry, is seen largely as a crisis of journalism. It is that, but it is also more than that. In their quest for a larger slice of a diminishing audience, newspapers have broken every rule in the book in order to reveal stories, few of which could be said to be in the public interest. Meanwhile, their editors and proprietors have demanded a seat at the political and social top table, while initiating or condoning unethical or criminal behaviour at the same time. However, journalism is just a part of a larger crisis in public life. With support for mainstream parties in decline, politicians have retreated into two cocoons - ideological listlessness and a craving for a hearing, using every means available. They have come to see the media as enemy and salvation. For more than 20 years government ministers and their advisers have obsessed about "coverage." Despite the attention focused on Prime Minister David Cameron and his beleaguered culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, the links between them and the Murdochs are no closer than those enjoyed by the Blair administration. Policy towards Europe was made in Wapping (the location of News International's London headquarters) rather than Downing Street, as Rupert Murdoch helpfully confirmed this week. Criminal justice initiatives were "road-tested" against hypothetical headlines in the tabloids, and not just News International's, to check whether they were tough enough. This week we learnt once again how easy it can be in Britain to get things done away from the public spotlight. America may fret about its legion of lobbyists on K Street, but in the UK corruption has been shown to be rather more casual, albeit no less insidious. The behavioural patterns of journalists and politicians have come in recent years to resemble the school playground. Politicians have been slavish to those they believed held the real power, and have sought to intimidate those they can. At the same time, journalists have happily regurgitated information given to them on a plate, often casting their source in the best possible light, in order to receive more in the future. This is stenography, not reporting. The most dispiriting of all the revelations has been about the police. The evidence presented to Lord Justice Leveson suggests that levels of corruption are possibly returning to the peaks of the 1970s. By doing favours and returning favours, several of the country's top officers joined this ritual dance of mutual bullying and dependency. Some of the UK's most prominent figures in public life could end up in jail. None of this would have come to light had it not been for, rather than the police, a small number of tenacious journalists and politicians battling against a series of threats and denials. British public life, in the technical and moral sense, is now seen to be at least as corrupt as in any equivalent country. On taking office in 2010, Mr Cameron vowed to be different. He would not chase after the next headline in the 24-hour news cycle; he would not worry unduly about a tweet. He would not seek to ingratiate himself with owners and editors. The informal nods and winks of the Blair years were over. A sense of formality, call it decorum perhaps, would return. How spurious that claim has turned out to be. So, as more arrests are made, as the Leveson circus prepares to hear from the leaders of the UK political parties, will anything change? I suspect not. The current crop of MPs is drawn from a narrow social and professional background: think-tanks, political advisers and journalism. If more elected representatives had spent years as, say, brain surgeons, entrepreneurs or teachers, a calmer atmosphere might have prevailed. But why would a brain surgeon wish to enter such a tarnished fray? A strong media operation is important in all walks of life to get the message across. There is nothing particularly invidious about that. Corporate lobbyists and public relations outfits cling to the structures of power. It is not that difficult for politicians to know when to listen and when to send them packing. As I emphasised in my own testimony to the Leveson inquiry in January, it would be wrong and dangerous to isolate journalism as the cause of the malaise. Self-evidently, it is in need of improvement. The common denominators are not just bullying and pliancy, but laziness and lack of investment. Reporters should be encouraged to get out more and find out more. Politicians might be advised to stick to their job and get on with making policy and running the country. As for boards of directors, they should be reminded that ethics and standards are a basic duty of governance. The writer is an author, journalist and campaigner for freedom of expression