Public Confidence in the Media and Police

He did not have that kind of relationship with Murdoch. He did pursue Murdoch too much, I grant the hon. Gentleman that, but he did not have that kind of close personal relationship that the present Prime Minister has had with Rebekah Brooks. No Prime Minister, almost certainly ever, has had such disproportionate contacts with one newspaper group and in such a short time. Heath, Thatcher and Major never had such chummy relationships with the media. Stanley Baldwin, referring in the 1930s to press excesses, spoke—the words were supplied to him by Rudyard Kipling—of"““Power without responsibility—the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.””" This Prime Minister has proved both incorrigible and suspect in his relationships with News International executives. The most notorious, of course, was his hiring of Andy Coulson as his head of communications. He played round that this afternoon when he answered questions, but the fact is that he should have been aware before appointing Coulson of Coulson's 2003 admission to the Select Committee of payments to the police, followed by his claim that such payments to the police were within the law—which is impossible, since bribing the police is a criminal offence. To take on someone who has confessed to criminal activity and then lied about it is utterly culpable, especially since numerous warnings were sent to the Prime Minister not to take him on. I repeat what was said earlier: Rebekah Brooks made it very clear that Coulson was appointed by the Prime Minister on the recommendation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Odd things have gone on under the Prime Minister's leadership of the Conservative party. He was imprecise and evasive when asked about the employment of Coulson's former deputy Neil Wallis, who has been arrested by the police as part of the hacking investigation, and who did work for the Tories in the run-up to the general election. The warnings to the Prime Minister about Coulson seem not to have been passed on by Ed Llewellyn, the Prime Minister's chief of staff. That was a grave dereliction of duty. No previous Prime Minister would have accepted such conduct, but as we know, Wallis's conduct was even more bizarre. When John Yates, then assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police, in advance of an arranged meeting with the Prime Minister, offered to brief him on phone hacking, Llewellyn rejected it, saying:"““We will want to be able to be entirely clear, for your sake and ours, that we have not been in contact with you about this subject.””" People go on about the inappropriateness of briefing the Prime Minister about operational police matters, but the offer was not to brief him about operational police matters, and if anyone tells me that the police do not brief the Prime Minister about operational matters relating to action against terrorism, which Yates was also in charge of, I say, ““Pull the other one.”” Llewellyn was seeking to claim deniability on the issue, but no Prime Minister ought to need to claim deniability on any subject. The Prime Minister's attitude to this entire imbroglio has been unacceptable. He has made statements about it outside the House and then had to be dragged to the House. This debate is the latest example. He held meetings with Rebekah Brooks right in the middle of the process of Government consideration of the News International bid for BSkyB, which was until recently regarded as a wave-through, and it would have been waved through if this scandal had not broken. Today the Prime Minister was questioned again and again, including by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner), about whether he had discussed the BSkyB takeover with Rebekah Brooks or anyone else from News International. He did not answer. He dodged the question. It is perfectly clear from his failure to respond that he discussed the BSkyB bid with News International, and if he wants to intervene now to deny it in categorical terms, I shall be delighted to give way. But he has not, and he will not. The Government have behaved to Parliament and the country as no Government have behaved since the Profumo scandal. Their priority has been appeasing one brand of press baron. That has to come to an end; the Government cannot get out of it.