This is the way "The World" ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.
The Telegraph reports that the phone hacking scandal which has destroyed Britain's 168-year-old News of the World newspaper all began with Prince William straining a tendon in his knee:

In November 2005, Clive Goodman, the paper's royal editor, wrote a brief story revealing that Prince William had strained a tendon in his knee and sought medical advice. A week later, he revealed that the prince had borrowed some broadcasting equipment from his friend Tom Bradby, an ITV journalist.
The stories baffled Royal officials, since so few people knew about them. In a conversation between Bradby and the prince, the two established that the information could only have come from voicemails they had left one another.

Apparently there are now 4,000 people who have been informed that their voicemails were hacked. What I wonder is, how easy is it to hack into someone's voicemail account? Is it happening here, too?
UPDATE: And now Prime Minister David Cameron is getting dragged into it.
DOUBLE UPDATE: I guess hacking into someone's phone is pretty easy.