Right, next thing to look at, if it's the same as the Escort, there should be a plastic 'bush' that goes into the bottom of the column tube. And as I remember there should be a spring in there too to keep it tight, it looks like you've lost the tension so either the whole lot's fallen out the bottom or possibly the spring's broken, check that next. There's no tension on the column and there should be. I think the side to side movement might be a bit of a red herring.