If there's anyone who knows exactly what goes on behind the closed doors of the celebrity world (other than our very own Mr Holy Moly of course) it's Max Clifford.

Only slightly less reviled in the celebrity world than HM, Clifford has been farming out stories of his clients' misdemeanours for decades, and yet when speaking to The Times recently he said that in all that time he'd never seen newspaper editors as scared about running a celeb story as they are now.

“There are two major stories that have come to me in recent weeks which newspaper editors would be running over burning coals to get if the Leveson inquiry wasn’t going on.

“There are no illegal methods involved in obtaining either story but the editors are worried about anything that touches on the private lives of the rich and famous.

“They are thinking ‘how would Leveson respond to this’ rather than ‘that’s a bloody good story, let’s get it in the paper’. They are also worried about upsetting their readers because the Leveson inquiry has heard damaging accusations from the parents of Madeleine McCann and Milly Dowler as well as from stars about how information for stories was obtained.

“Readers have become more aware of how the press gets its stories and editors are frightened of alienating them.They are worried that the big stories which previously gave them circulation gains might have the opposite effect in the current climate.”

“The inquiry has already changed the face of tabloid journalism and in some ways is making newspapers behave more responsibly. Whether it’s for ever or not remains to be seen.”

However, we here at HM would like to dispute Clifford's claims. While The Times, The Sun and The Mail may be petrified of getting their bargepoles anywhere near the topics covered at the enquiry, we have been fearlessly covering all of this year's most controversial stories. Just take a look at this selection:

Olly Murs opens Nando's

Pauline Quirke's hip

Peter Andre's coffee shop

Johnny Depp falling over in the street

Kris Marshall banned from driving after sleeping outside Tescos

Snoop Dogg praises giant swede grower

Alex James' shows off new cheese range

Gordon Ramsay's sex dwarf doppleganger dies

Justin Bieber's penis sculpture

Paul Daniels knocked out by frozen pizza

Exactly. What do you think of that, eh Max Clifford?