HAS the law ever been in a bigger shambles than it is now in the wake of the mass anarchy which has resulted in Ryan Giggs being unmasked as the footballer whose alleged affair was being kept secret by a super-injunction?

After Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming used parliamentary privilege to name Giggs earlier today, the Manchester United star's name is on every news website tonight, as well as radio stations and television bulletins.

And yet the High Court continues to reject bids by The Sun to lift a gagging order which has become meaningless and unsustainable.

I have taken legal advice to be doubly sure that I'm not going to land myself in prison, but The Northern Echo will be naming Giggs on its front page tomorrow morning.

It would be ridiculous for us not to join the rest of the world in identifying the player but, given that we will be officially defying the law and prison is a lonely place, I thought it best to cover myself.

We are left in a state of complete chaos, with Parliament, the judiciary and the media on collision course.

There is a dangerous precedent in individual MPs using parliamentary privilege to undermine the law but these are unprecedented circumstances.

The irony is that Ryan Giggs has played a blinder in making this a much bigger story by taking out an injunction, and then by trying to stop the dam of publicity bursting.

'Footballer has affair' is a one-day wonder. It happens all the time. But he is now at the centre of a story that will go down in history as a turning point in legal thinking.

The sadness is that the glittering career of a man widely regarded as a model professional will now be forever tainted by his attempts to keep the lid on allegations of his infidelity.