Cameron backs Tory chief over phone taps
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David Cameron offered his strong support for Tory communications chief Andy Coulson today as the former tabloid editor came under intense pressure over alleged phone hacking by News of the World journalists.
John Prescott led Labour calls for Mr Coulson to be fired after it was reported that News Group, which owns his former Sunday paper, spent more than £1 million on out-of-court settlements relating to the claims.
But the Conservative leader indicated he had no intention of losing his director of communications, who resigned from the News of the World in 2007 after one of its reporters was jailed for hacking into the phone messages of royal aides.
The latest claims, in The Guardian, suggest that the practice was much wider than previously thought.
Speaking outside his west London home this morning, Mr Cameron said: "It's wrong for newspapers to breach people's privacy with no justification.
"That is why Andy Coulson resigned as editor of the News of the World two-and-a-half years ago.
"Of course I knew about that resignation before offering him the job. But I believe in giving people a second chance.
"As director of communications for the Conservatives, he does an excellent job in a proper, upright way at all times."
MPs from all three parties, including former deputy prime minister Mr Prescott and Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell were among the targets of the alleged phone taps.
The Guardian quoted sources saying police officers found evidence of News Group staff using private investigators who hacked into "thousands" of mobile phones.
Mr Prescott said: "If these allegations are to be believed, the enormity of it is unbelievable.
"I am actually staggered that Mr Cameron, who employed Mr Coulson, who was the editor at the time through all these allegations, says he's quite relaxed about these allegations."
Former home secretary Charles Clarke described the alleged practices as "outrageous".
"I think that David Cameron has to sack Andy Coulson because his denial is very narrow in the extreme," he said.
"I think David Cameron himself has to be much clearer about the situation.
"I think that the Home Secretary should be asking the Chief Inspector of Constabulary for a full report about the police behaviour in this whole incident."
PR agent Max Clifford, who is another whose phone was allegedly hacked into, said the claims raised "lots of serious questions".
Mr Clifford, who works with some of Britain's best known celebrities, said: "If these allegations prove to be true, then it's something that an awful lot of people are going to be very unhappy about."
An influential Commons committee is poised to summon newspaper chiefs. It is holding an emergency meeting today.
Tory MP John Whittingdale, who chairs the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, said he wanted to reopen an inquiry into the issue.
Mr Whittingdale said: "My view is that this has raised very serious questions about the evidence given to us.
"There are a number of questions I would like to put to News International on the basis of what The Guardian has reported."
The committee would examine the circumstances "as a matter of urgency" at a scheduled meeting later today, he said.
"It may well be that we decide we wish to have somebody from News International to appear before us."
He said he had seen no "direct evidence" that assurances previously given to the committee by the publisher on the matter had been untrue.
But he added: "If that is the case, it does beg the question why News International have apparently paid huge sums of money in settlement of actions in the courts.
"That is a question I would wish to put to News International."
The Guardian said Andy Coulson was deputy editor and then editor of the News of the World when journalists were using the private investigators.
Mr Coulson resigned from the News of the World after royal editor Clive Goodman was sentenced to four months in prison in January 2007 for plotting to hack into telephone messages belonging to royal aides.
The Guardian said the £1 million paid out by News Group to secure secrecy concerned three out-of-court settlements in cases that would have shown the alleged methods being used.
One of the settlements, totalling £700,000 in legal costs and damages, involved legal action brought by Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association, the newspaper said.
In the Goodman trial, Mr Taylor was revealed as one of the public figures whose phone messages were illegally intercepted by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.
Mr Coulson said last night: "This story relates to an alleged payment made after I left the News of the World two-and-a-half years ago.
"I have no knowledge whatsoever of any settlement with Gordon Taylor.
"The Mulcaire case was investigated thoroughly by the police and by the Press Complaints Commission. I took full responsibility at the time for what happened on my watch but without my knowledge and resigned."
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne compared the affair to the Damian McBride smears scandal.
Mr McBride was forced to resign as Gordon Brown's director of strategy and communications after it emerged he had written emails suggesting possible smears of senior Tories.
"At the very least, Andy Coulson was responsible for a newspaper that was out of control and at worst he was personally implicated," Mr Huhne said.
"Either way, a future prime minister cannot have someone who is involved in these sort of underhand tactics. The exact parallel is with Damian McBride."
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) said in a statement: "The MPS carried out an investigation into the alleged unlawful interception of telephone calls.
"Officers liaised closely with the Crown Prosecution Service. Two people were charged and subsequently convicted and jailed. We are not prepared to comment further."
A spokeswoman for News International, the parent company of News Group Newspapers, said: "News International feels it is inappropriate to comment at this time."
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Comments
By 1996 Labour-Guardian-BBC had effectively merged message wise and were acting as the same organization. Labour media managers could be seen bossing willing Guardian and BBC journalists around at one Labour Party conference like they were all working for the same team, which in ideological terms they were.
During this time it was the Guardian's role to act as the hatchet man. It's job was to dig dirt on leading Conservatives. I'm not sure if All Preston's Men actually bugged anyone but they did use extremely heavy tactics. Two Guardian journalists were once caught on camera screaming at someone they wanted information out of in a threatening manner and their aggression and zealous devotion to the coming new order was legendary.
Having got a story the Guardian would then splash it, where upon the other members of the Guardian-
Labour-BBC Axis would come into play. The BBC would announce the issue was in the public domain and hence escalate the stuff of a minor political newspaper into a national story.
Senior members of the Labour Party pretending they had just read about the news that morning would then come out with well prepared scripts playing the and offended bystander "shocked and disappointed" at the hapless Minister's conduct, and inevitably calling for his resignation. Often the so called 'scandal' involved nothing more than a ual dalliance but this was the sort of Hypocrisy New Labour's men used to allowed to get away with in the 1990s.
If the minister didn't resign the Guardian and the BBC would keep up the pressure sometimes for days even weeks. Often he went if for no other reason than to give Conservative prime minister John Major a respite from the bad publicity.
Using such tactics the Guardian-Labour-BBC managed to claim a whole raft of Conservative scalps, creating an impression of permanent crisis and misconduct in the Conservative government, which of course was the whole point of the dirty tricks campaign in the first place.
It's well known that since Gordon Brown became PM he has been harking back to these so called glory days, to the point that he has even assembled the old New Labour brigade. This was the reason Peter Mandelson was brought back into government not for his limited ministerial competence. Ditto Derek Draper, Philip Gould, Alistair Campbell and others.
Brown's initial attempts to turn the clock back to the days of politics by smear were thrawted when Damien McBride and Draper were caught orchestrating a dirty tricks campaign against leading Conservatives (and their wives) from the heart of 10 Downing Street.
This was too close to Brown, and too close to Labour.
So now clearly the tactic is to get The Guardian to do the dirty work just as in the 1990s. Labour MPs can then act 'shocked' and of course 'disappointed', before inevitably calling for resignations.
But there is no comparison between Damian McBride and Andy Coulson as has been claimed. McBride acted shamefully while under the direct day to day control of Gordon Brown (who must have known what he was doing). Coulson is alleged to have been involved in something in his previous job working for a different employer. Something which can not remotely be laid at the Cameron's feet.
Moreover what is the legal position? How can someone be sacked or forced to resign from their current job for something they may or may not have been involved with for a past employer. I suspect that Labour ministers are calling for Cameron to break their own employment laws!
People should be aware that this 'scoop' is simply a continuation of Labour's very old obsession with politics by smear and spin. Brown is a deeply immoral and unethical man who is becoming desperate. His conduct and that of his media team is going to get a whole lot worse between now and May 2010.
How right you were. Brown has been expressing "concern" re phone hacking! The whole thing has been well orchestrated by the Guardian/government. The comparison between McBride and Coulson is being touted in the media when there is no comparison between the two.
Bankers bring the economy to the point of collapse, but the only people who have suffered a consequence are the ordinary folk, inside and outside the banks, whose jobs have vanished or whose savings or properties are devalued. The big boys continue to flourish, and, even in the banks where the government is the majority shareholder, the culture of vast salaries souped up with vast bonuses seems to be returning. No one has been called to account in any way that diminishes their status and comfort.
MPs are revealed as beneficiaries of an effectively previously clandestine expenses system which scrutiny and legislation would make impossible in any other public body, and, despite the generosity of that scheme, some appear to have abused it in ways that seem arguably fraudulent. One or two heads have rolled, but, unless you count those MPs who've decided that they'll pack in at the end of this parliament, comfortably trousering their severances, the only ones to suffer so far seem to be those that the party leaders would rather do without - Ian Gibson for Labour and a clutch of old buffer Tory knights of the shires who mess up Cameron's rebrand. And, as to the alleged fraud, not a whiff of any prosecution as yet. In fact the first line peddled - till public outrage prompted a rethink - was that there was "insufficient evidence" to bering any case to court. I'm not holding my breath that any ever will be.
And now it appears that Murdoch's "News Group" has paid out huge sums in quiet compensation to people who discovered that their mobile phone texts had been tapped by provate detectives commissioned by the Group's journalists, and that all sorts of public figures have been subjected to this. It's suggested that the police knew, the CPS knew and the courts knew. But the whole thing was kept quiet, even from the victims of this espionage who were still blissfully unaware of it.
And Andy Coulson, ex-editor of "News of the Screws", who was at the heart of Murdoch's nauseating, seedy empire, gets appointed Director of Communications to the so-called reforming Tories. Vomit-inducing ...
Welcome to banana republic Britain. We laugh at Italy and shake our heads patronizingly at Berlusconi. Where's the difference?
or,,,,what does he have on Camoron ??????????
But the real question is what employing a guy who'd come direct from the Murdoch stable says about the Tories under the Cameron/Osborn ascendency.
Forget - for just a moment! - the text hacking, in character though it would be, if proved true. Just look at the paper, look at the owners, look at king Rupert, the head of the poisoned well. As "Sun" staff long ago put it themselves when they first moved to Wapping, they "work for the Lie Factory". What party with integrity would take on, in a pivotal communications role, a bloke with that background? And not just take him on the staff, but make him the lead guy? Fair enough if he'd worked for News International years ago, when he was trying to make his way in the journalistic world. But he came straight from there. They gave him a job before the sour smell had chance to evaporate! Own goal, Mr C!
Fact is, we run the risk of purging out one load of arrogant, unprincipled, deceitful shysters and just replacing them with another lot. What a prospect ... !
the law should deal with other powerful miscreants.
mr coulson hasn't got a leg to stand on, whether he was aware of the illegal tapping or not. either he was derelict in his duty and grossly incompetent by not being aware or what his journalists were doing on a grand scale or he was party to that illegal activity. a lot more people deserve to go to jail.
it should not be just royalty who deserve legal protection from the wrongdoings of those with huge power. cameron is making his biggest political mistake so far by standing by this man.
the effected rich and the famous of the world should unite - that's the only way to put these powerful criminals into prison.
i notice that the times isn't opening this story to public views and comments today!