Dissent is the essential business of journalism. Journalists justify their platform with news and opinions that the powerful would prefer were kept private. The hack’s theoretical role is that of the curmudgeonly Jacques in As You Like It, who said: “Give me leave to speak my mind, and I will cleanse the foul body of the infected world.”

It therefore matters that local journalism is crumbling under the impact of the internet and the civic apathy of the great British public. The grubby bloomers of aldermen and local business big shots need hygienic airing as much as the dirty underwear of MPs and multinationals.