By ALAN COWELL
Published: July 20, 2011
LONDON ? Prime Minister David Cameron went before a loud and rowdy session of Parliament on Wednesday to offer a spirited defense of his record in Britain?s phone hacking scandal. For the first time, he seemed to distance himself from a former tabloid editor he had hired to work in 10 Downing Street.
Parbul TV, via Reuters
Prime Minister David Cameron answered questions in the British Parliament on Wednesday.
Related in Opinion
-
Op-Ed Contributor: Why We Need the Tabloids (July 20, 2011)
Parbul TV, via Reuters
Rupert Murdoch and his son James appeared before a parliamentary committee on Tuesday.
Mr. Cameron?s appearance before a special sitting of the House of Commons offered one more remarkable moment of passion and spectacle, following the appearance Tuesday of Rupert Murdoch, one of the world?s most powerful media moguls, and his son James, who were both questioned by British legislators for nearly three hours.
The Murdochs? appearance ? made yet more dramatic by a protester?s attack on Rupert Murdoch with a plate of shaving cream ? did not seem on Wednesday to have come close to answering many of the questions the father and son faced about phone hacking in the British outpost of their media empire in 2002.
Indeed, one of the two parliamentary panels investigating the widening scandal released a scathing report on Wednesday accusing Murdoch companies of ?deliberate attempts? to thwart its investigations, and said police inquiries had been a ?catalog of failures? in investigating the issue.
The events played out against a backdrop of huge public revulsion over the central allegation that The News of the World, the tabloid that Mr. Murdoch closed down earlier this month, had ordered a private investigator to hack the voice mail of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old girl abducted and murdered in 2002. The announcement that their company would stop paying the legal fees for that investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, was flashed on television bulletins. So great is the public?s interest in the whole affair that the BBC devoted live television coverage on Wednesday to what it said was the Murdochs? executive jet flying out of Luton airport north of London. (Its destination was not announced.)
The gathering of so many emotional issues, laced with big money deals, tabloid scandal and long-running British suspicion of the Murdoch machine, has crystallized into the most serious crisis of credibility and confidence of Mr. Cameron?s 15 months in office ? a crisis in which he seemed to be trying on Wednesday to regain some of the initiative seized earlier by the Labour opposition leader, Ed Miliband.
On Wednesday, Mr. Cameron switched to the offensive, challenging Mr. Miliband to detail his party?s links and encounters with the Murdoch family, which were widely known under former prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown before the Murdochs? daily tabloid, The Sun, shifted its support to Mr. Cameron before the May 2010 election.
He said all political parties had cozied up to media barons for years, seeking their electoral support. ?The clock has stopped on my watch and we need to sort it out,? he said, calling for a new relationships between the press and politicians.
Mr. Cameron returned home early from an African trade tour late Tuesday to face questions about his own relationships with former senior figures at News International, the British subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch?s global News Corporation, particularly his choice of a former Murdoch employee, Andy Coulson, as his director of communications.
Mr. Coulson, who was editor of The News of the World when some of the phone hacking took place, resigned from the prime minister?s office in January and was among 10 people who were arrested in the affair.
Referring to his decision to hire Mr. Coulson, Mr. Cameron said, ?I regret and I am extremely sorry about the furor it has caused.?
?With 20-20 hindsight and all that has followed,? he said, ?I would not have offered him the job and I expect that he wouldn?t have taken it. But you don?t make decisions in hindsight, you make them in the present. You live and you learn and, believe you me, I have learned.?
He added that Mr. Coulson had been properly vetted before joining his staff and had given ?assurances? that he had not been involved in phone hacking.
It was the closest Mr. Cameron has come to an apology, and seemed to show that the prime minister was distancing himself from his former aide.
But Mr. Cameron continued to defend Mr. Coulson?s work as director of communications and said he had ?an old-fashioned view about innocence until proven guilty.? If it is proved that Mr. Coulson lied to him, he said, ?that will be the moment for a profound apology.?
?It was my decision? to hire Mr. Coulson, Mr. Cameron said, ?and I take responsibility.?
Mr. Miliband, the leader of the Labour opposition, responded by saying Mr. Cameron?s position had been compromised by his association with Mr. Coulson. ?Why doesn?t he do more than give a half-apology?? Mr. Miliband asked.
Jo Becker contributed reporting.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/world/europe/21hacking.html?_r=3&partner=rss&emc=rss
No comments:
Post a Comment