FEW things frighten a British politician as much as a phone call from the News of the World, a ferocious, ruthless Sunday tabloid that is the country's best-selling newspaper. Many British daily newspapers are raucous, salacious and intrusive, while also being astonishingly professional. The NOTW takes all this to another level: no other publication devotes the same resources to getting scoops. The result is a weekly product that routinely crushes the competition, thanks to a potent blend of hard work, money and prurience. At its worst, it combines the cynicism of a brothel madame with the self-righteousness of a lynch mob.

Given all this, it is at once depressing and not hard to see why David Cameron—a man who thrives on projecting a slightly old-fashioned aura of gentlemanly decency—hired as his press chief not just any old poacher turned gamekeeper, but a former editor of the NOTW, Andy Coulson. Mr Coulson, who in his day ran several stories embarrassing to senior Conservative (as well as non-Conservative) politicians, was hired in opposition, and followed Mr Cameron to Downing Street as head of communications, a post that places Mr Coulson deep inside the prime minister's inner circle.

Mr Coulson resigned as editor of the NOTW after the tabloid's royal editor and a private investigator were imprisoned in 2007 for conspiracy to access voicemail messages on the mobile telephones of aides to Britain's royal family. Mr Coulson said at the time he was stepping down to take responsibility for the incident while insisting he had been wholly in the dark about the hacking activities of the journalist, and had never sanctioned such activities. A House of Commons committee looked into this murky tale afresh last year, but did not get very far, expressing exasperation at what the cross-party body called "collective amnesia" among newspaper executives summoned for questioning.

Now Mr Coulson is back in the headlines, after a former NOTW reporter spoke to theNew York Times for a lengthy investigative article published this weekend, and alleged that Mr Coulson was aware of phone hacking. Do not hold your breath for any of these allegations to be settled, one way or another. The former reporter accusing Mr Coulson is not what you could call the ideal witness: he was sacked from the NOTW because of drink and drugs problems.

In a statement quoted by the Guardian, the tabloid's management said:

"The New York Times story contains no new evidence – it relies on unsubstantiated allegations from unnamed sources or claims from disgruntled former employees that should be treated with extreme scepticism given the reasons for their departures from this newspaper. We reject absolutely any suggestion there was a widespread culture of wrongdoing at the News of the World."

Meanwhile, defenders and attackers of Mr Coulson are forming up behind wearily partisan lines. Labour politicians, including former government ministers who suspect their phones were hacked, are demanding the police investigate further. Conservative politicians and commentators are lining up to say the whole thing is variously a Labour party campaign or an attempt by the New York Times to get at Rupert Murdoch, boss of the NOTW's parent company and of the Wall Street Journal, a rival to the New York Times.

The only thing that is crystal clear is Mr Coulson's importance to the team around the prime minister. The BBC is running quotes tonight from an unnamed "very senior" figure insisting that Mr Coulson's job is safe.

Mr Coulson is far from the first tabloid journalist to be hired by a prime minister, of course. Notably, Tony Blair relied heavily on a former political editor of the left-leaning Mirror, Alastair Campbell (described as a "genius" by Mr Blair in his memoirs published on September 1st). But Mr Campbell was steeped in party politics before joining the Blair team: he was close to earlier Labour leaders, notably Neil Kinnock.

Mr Coulson came from the world of showbusiness and celebrity reporting, before shooting up the ranks at Mr Murdoch's British tabloid stable. He offers not just a link to Mr Murdoch's media empire and an insider's knowledge of the tougher end of the press. He is also often described as a source of invaluable advice on popular opinion for Mr Cameron and his closest allies, many of whom hail from the rarefied upper reaches of the British class system.

Unless something dramatic changes, it seems likely that headlines about Mr Coulson will soon fade away, leaving the press chief to return to his work of crafting and inspiring headlines about others.

Is it naive, though, to feel a certain melancholy that Mr Cameron should rely so heavily on a man who ran the News of the World, of all tabloids? It is more than just another newspaper. Even by the standards of the tabloids, it is capable of unusual cruelty and unfairness in the pursuit of a few column inches. Alongside the villains it boasts of exposing, its victims include numerous ordinary Britons whose only crime was to be considered newsworthy for a few moments on a given Sunday. Where all that fits into Mr Cameron's vision of a Big Society is something of a mystery.

A typographic error in this posting was corrected on September 6th