Piers Morgan will find many ways to deny phone hacking – but how long before his number is up? | Archie Bland

Following a judge's ruling in favour of Prince Harry, the former Daily Mirror editor's confected outrage is starting to look a little desperate

So how much, exactly, did Piers Morgan know about phone hacking when he was editor of the Daily Mirror? It depends when you ask him. And since he edited the newspaper for nine years when hacking was at its zenith, and since other people similarly accused have spent time in prison, this seems important for reasons that do not depend on your feelings about Prince Harry.

On Friday, for example, Morgan had a simple line for reporters gathered outside his house. Perhaps his thinking had been clarified by the unfortunate news that a judge ruling on claims from Harry and others had found that there had been extensive hacking going on at the Daily Mirror, and that there was no doubt Morgan knew about it. Similar evidence has been presented to the Leveson inquiry and in previous litigation, but never as extensively or with such a powerful endorsement from a judge as this. But it's all nonsense, Morgan sputtered, who would do such a thing? I've never hacked a phone, or told anybody else to hack a phone," he said. Simple.

Archie Bland is the editor of the Guardian's First Edition newsletter, and writes on media, culture and technology