ON THE face of it, it is a question of rare urgency: did the Downing Street press chief, Andy Coulson, condone the illegal hacking of voicemail messages, back when he edited Britain's most ferocious tabloid, the News of the World? At Westminster the tang of scandal hangs in the autumn air, after new witnesses popped up to allege that Mr Coulson knew more than he admits about the antics that saw one of the paper's reporters jailed three years ago. But take a step back and the government's critics may be asking the wrong question.

Mr Coulson had already resigned as editor of Britain's biggest-selling Sunday paper when he was hired by David Cameron in 2007, initially as communications director of the Conservative Party, moving to Downing Street this year as a key member of the inner circle. Mr Coulson says he resigned to take responsibility for what happened “on his watch”, but knew nothing of the illegal voicemail hacking. That defence leads pretty remorselessly to one of two conclusions: either Mr Coulson was surprisingly incompetent and did not know where his own staff unearthed their scoops, or he is not telling the whole truth. That in turn suggests a bigger question: what does it say about Mr Cameron—about his judgment, the ruthlessness that lurks beneath his image of old-fashioned decency, and above all about the power of Britain's tabloid press—that he hired Mr Coulson in the first place?

The question transcends Mr Coulson. Perhaps he will keep his job. The phone-hacking scandal is not new. Though it is not normally the job of cabinet ministers to spend time defending a spin doctor, senior Tories have loyally spread the word that the Downing Street press chief is the victim of Labour smears (the current fuss certainly has a partisan whiff) or of intra-press feuding aimed at his former boss, Rupert Murdoch. Then again, if the story keeps going much longer, he may yet resign.

Either way, Mr Coulson is replaceable. What counts is what he symbolises: the power of tabloid Britain, which Mr Coulson's experience and connections made him well-placed to harness.

Other old tabloid hands have also ended up in Downing Street. Tony Blair's hugely influential press chief, Alastair Campbell, had worked for the left-leaning Daily Mirror. But the abrasive Mr Campbell was a Labour insider before he was a spin doctor. Mr Coulson came from the world of celebrity news. Nor is the News of the World just any tabloid. Britain's crowded media market is an international outlier, both for its rowdiness and its professionalism. Even so, Mr Coulson's old publication stands out, routinely crushing rivals with a blend of hard work, money and cunning. At its worst it combines the cynicism of a brothel madame with the self-righteousness of a lynch mob.

British tabloids enjoy political power in several ways. Thanks to weak taboos about privacy, they wield the threat of personal exposure. If the current mood in Parliament, especially in the wake of last year's expenses scandal, is one of bitterness and fear (because all MPs feel they now live under suspicion that they are “on the take”), the tone of the tabloids is one of undisguised triumphalism. To pick a recent case study, the Sunday Mirror reported on September 5th that the estranged second wife of an obscure Conservative MP was working as a prostitute. The following day, the outwardly respectable Daily Mail carried abject quotes from the MP on his doorstep, saying he knew nothing of his wife's actions, and could prove that he was separated from her. At this point, the Mail noted coolly, the MP “began sobbing”. The piece concluded by naming his three children.

When they are not humiliating individuals, the tabloids shape political debate by the hammer-beat of repetition. Last month the Daily and Sunday Express—which also specialise in indignation—put immigration on the front page six times, under such headlines as “Migrants Rob Young Britons of Jobs”.

They thus tempt governments into policymaking by headline, a method that prizes speed, simplicity and emotional satisfaction over sober analysis of costs and benefits. Tabloid-wooing helps explain the authoritarian streak of the last Labour government (and much besides). A desire for positive headlines helps to account for several of the current coalition government's dubious policies, from a pledge to cap net inward migration, to the decision to shield the National Health Service from public-spending cuts. Years of hostile headlines about the European Union have made sensible public debate of Britain's EU interests almost impossible: instead successive governments talk tough at home while pursuing pragmatism in Brussels.

The brothel madame's virtues

Yet for all that, a flight to elitism, even if it could be arranged, would surely be a terrible solution. Glance across the English Channel, and several European countries—such as France, the Netherlands, Belgium or Italy—enjoy overwhelmingly sober, polite newspapers. In the same places nastily populist or xenophobic parties wield hefty electoral clout, or prop up governing coalitions. It cannot be irrelevant that voters furious about immigration, the European Union or globalisation seldom see their rage expressed in the press. That leaves a gap for extremists on the left and right, peddling dead-end solutions.

Small, extremist or protest parties do much worse in Britain. The electoral system is one reason. But arguably a raucous press obliges and allows mainstream parties to engage with issues that make many voters cross, such as immigration. If noisy tabloids make Britain's politics worse, perhaps their din makes its democracy stronger. If that is so, good governments should do two things: engage with the tabloid din, but keep it at a distance to allow reflective policymaking. By appointing Mr Coulson to his inner circle, Mr Cameron has done one, but not the other.

Economist.com/blogs/bagehot