My name is Dave and I am a pressaholic

Something fascinating has happened in the last year or so. Many senior politicians have effectively been coming clean and admitting an addiction. They have been confessing that they have been addicted to a rather dysfunctional relationship with the media, the press in particular.

That's good. The first step to dealing with a problem is admitting you have one. It is a necessary precondition to recovery from an addiction. But it is not sufficient.

What needs to come next is a full and frank admission of what exactly was wrong with these relationships. Indeed if we imagine these politicians as equivalent to alcoholics, we know from the 12 step programme of Alcoholics Anonymous that one of the most important steps involves admitting the exact nature of the wrongs committed. I'm not really seeing that anywhere here.

Sure, we get a lot of earnest language about politicians having got "too close" to the press and vows to not let it happen again. But so what? I don't really care if they got a bit "too close". It doesn't matter if Cameron had 1000 "country suppers" with Rebekah Brooks. Unless of course that closeness led to some sort of undue influence. But all the politicians who have been asked about this have flat out denied that they have allowed this sort of influence to take place.

Something does not add up here. It's like someone turning up for counselling and saying she wants to stop drinking but then denying there have been any negative consequences from her behaviour relating to this. In which case why does she want to stop?

In order for it to be credible that these politicians are truly on the road to their recovery from the scourge of their addiction we really need more specifics. But of course the problem is that if for example Cameron was to come out and say that his Ofcom policy changed in 2009 in order to fit in with what James Murdoch wanted or if politicians from all parties admitted that their approach to drugs policy is to accord with the agenda of tabloid editors they would terminate their political careers.

Perhaps in private they will be able to properly admit in detail to how deeply in thrall they were to their rapacious Fleet Street creditors.

But unless they confide in us, their electors then they shouldn't be surprised if we behave like a suspicious spouse who's heard it all before and doesn't really believe they have learned much if anything.

Adam Smith should be prosecuted

Yesterday evening, the more I mulled over the events of the previous 24 hours, the more I started to think that what Jeremy Hunt's adviser is alleged to have done could have broken the law.

If we are to believe the Secretary of State, his adviser went completely rogue. On his own initiative he is alleged to have leaked privileged information to one of the potential bidders in a deal worth billions of pounds. From the published e-mails between him and Frédéric Michel (Murdoch's point man on the deal) it would also appear that he leaked details of speeches Hunt was due to make and also apparently offered advice from his office on how to counter arguments from the OFT.

Surely amongst all of this there are grounds for a prosecution? We know that in the end the deal did not go through because News Corp withdrew their bid in the light of the hacking scandal. But it is worth bearing in mind that had that scandal not erupted Hunt was poised to give the nod for the deal. So all the information that was apparently passed on by Smith could have made the difference.

It would appear that we are in a legal grey area on this one. But the City watchdog is considering a prosecution stating that the scandal "potentially falls into market abuse territory".

I suggest that this is an important enough case that if there is a chance laws have been broken it should go to trial and we can test this complex area of law in court. That way, all relevant correspondence can be subpoenaed and we can hopefully get to the bottom of this. That would seem to me to be very much in the public interest.

I certainly don't think that a hasty resignation from a SpAd followed by an "he made unintentional mistakes" eulogy from his boss in parliament is anywhere near enough to close this scandal out.

And although Smith might be willing to sacrifice his career to act as a "firewall" for Hunt I suspect it might be a whole different ballgame if we start to talk about potential prison time.