A shabby saga that has real consequences Yesterday was day 78 of the Leveson Inquiry. Detailed evidence was taken about such arcane matters as the regulatory due process to be followed in media takeover bids and whether undertakings in lieu were a good thing or not. Should the British public care? Surely there are more important matters to worry them, in a week when it emerged that economic activity declined more in the first quarter of the year than previously thought and the euro crisis gained pace. This, indeed, is the somewhat complacent view being taken at the highest level in Government: that the voters are indifferent to the goings-on at the Royal Courts of Justice because they are too concerned about their jobs and living standards. The Leveson Inquiry, this argument goes, is for the purists, of interest only to political anoraks and the Westminster village. Ministers are deluding themselves. Perception is everything in politics. It is not necessary to know the intricacies of competition law to get a sense that something improper has been going on. However much David Cameron protests otherwise, the spectre of sleaze has returned to haunt his party. He may regard the impression of government by chums, for chums, as a caricature, but it is one that will prove hard to shake off. When we cut through the Leveson verbiage, a few consistent themes are emerging. It is clear that the Conservative leadership wanted Rupert Murdoch's company to take over the bits of BSkyB that it did not already own. Mr Cameron and his senior colleagues were not unique in holding this view. The previous Labour government, which was also unhealthily close to the media tycoon, passed legislation specifically designed to enable him to expand his broadcasting empire despite his dominant position in the industry. The Tories were confronted with one major problem: Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, whose job was to oversee the bid process, was opposed to the deal going through. Then they got lucky, when Mr Cable had to be relieved of his responsibility after telling two undercover Daily Telegraph reporters that he had "declared war on Mr Murdoch." The job was given instead to Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, who was a passionate advocate for the News Corp bid. We know of this enthusiasm because Mr Hunt sent a memo to the Prime Minister complaining about the way Mr Cable was handling the process. In purely political terms, there is nothing wrong with being pro-Murdoch. For Conservatives, he is an embodiment of the Thatcherite principles of enterprise and can-do entrepreneurialism. He took on and defeated the printing unions at Wapping and has been loathed by the Left ever since. The trouble is that Mr Hunt, in his new role, had a quasi-judicial obligation to display impartiality. It is at least arguable that he failed to discharge that duty. Adam Smith, his former special adviser, kept News Corp executives fully in the loop through hundreds of text messages and emails. He fed them information about the state of the bid in a way that was subsequently judged to have been inappropriate. For all that, one of the more shabby aspects of this saga has been the scapegoating of Mr Smith, who came across in his evidence to Leveson over the past few days as a decent and competent individual doing what he thought was the job his boss expected of him. It is a rich irony that an inquiry set up by Mr Cameron to investigate press ethics has turned into a forensic investigation of his Government's relationship with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. The Prime Minister yesterday continued to deny any impropriety and to stand behind his Culture Secretary, arguing that the most important thing was that Mr Hunt had carried out his role properly. Mr Cameron may believe this to be so, but it is not how it looks - and this risks consequences beyond these shores. Britain's international standing as a good place in which to invest and do business rests, in large part, on an appreciation that we play by the rules and obey the law. The furtive and clandestine shenanigans exposed by the bright light of the Leveson Inquiry are jeopardising that hard-won reputation.