Anyone who has fought the tabloid press will tell you that taking them on is not for the faint hearted. Prince Harry would have known that they would fight hard and dirty. He and Meghan Markle have been attacked ever since they set out, and voiced the intention to improve the quality of the British press. They also wanted to reduce the degree to which it abuses all of us, by compelling it to be the subject of effective and independent regulation.

It is impossible to overstate both the immensity of this task, and its importance to us all – not just to victims of press abuse (individual and corporate). We all rely on the media to form our judgments about national and world events, who we vote for, where we spend our money etc. If we cannot rely on what the media tells us, then how else are we to ascertain the truth?

Unlike the broadcast media which is regulated by Ofcom which has a very light touch government underlay, and generally regulates broadcasters effectively, the press “regulator” (IPSO and its predecessor the PCC) does no such thing. You need look no further than the proven serial criminality of the Reach (publishers of The Mirror) and News UK (The Sun and The Times) for proof of the complete failure of press regulation. My 30 years of dealing with Associated Newspapers (the Mail titles) convinces me that the similar allegations made by – inter alia – Prince Harry and Doreen Lawrence are also well-founded.

By contrast to the settlement with News UK, Prince Harry took his claim against the publishers of The Mirror through to trial and secured, from the same judge as was going to hear this case, a finding that the wrongdoing at The Mirror titles went right to the top.

While the settlement is in many ways a spectacular success for the Prince and his excellent legal team, he has come away without a judicial finding that the multiple (and I strongly suspect well-founded) allegations that he has made against senior figures at News UK are true.

The very belated admission by News UK of massive and illegal intrusion against Prince Harry and his mother is welcome – as is the equally belated admission that this activity went on at The Sun as well as The News of The World. As his barrister, David Sherborne rightly said, this strongly suggests that the newspaper group and its executives have lied to the Leveson Inquiry, to Parliament, and to all of us about the extent of these activities.

However, News UK has issued its own statement claiming that the Prince settled because he couldn’t prove his allegations, and also firmly denying that the deletion of 30 million emails in the run up to these proceedings was not an attempt to destroy evidence to avoid culpability on the part of the senior management.

Time will tell whether the Prince has truly won the victory that he has fought so bravely for; a culture change in the British press – especially its tabloid elements. Ultimately that will require government action, something akin to the enquiry into the Post Office scandal, which while it exposed gross injustice against hundreds of sub-postmasters and mistresses, dealt with issues which impacted only a minute minority of the public. Press abuse affects all of us.

This was supposed to take place in the form of Leveson 2. While he was in opposition Keir Starmer was all in favour of it. Now that he is in power he has undertaken a volte face, doubtless with the knowledge of the revenge that would be taken against him and his government were he to order such an enquiry. We still therefore are still faced with a press which wields wholly unconstitutional and dangerous power over those that we elect.

Unless that changes the Herculean efforts of Prince Harry and his excellent legal team will have changed little, proof of which stares us in the face. Nowhere on the Sun website is there any report of the outcome of Prince Harry’s legal victory against it. So it’s business as usual for them.