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LONDON. — British prime minister David Cameron’s judgment over phone hacking was under scrutiny for a second day as Labour suggested he had wilfully ignored repeated high-level warnings about Andy Coulson’s appointment to Downing Street in 2010.
Criticism of the prime minister was compounded when a judge rebuked Cameron for potentially prejudicing the final phase of the phone-hacking trial by prematurely branding Coulson a liar before all the verdicts on his former spin doctor — found guilty on Tuesday of conspiracy to hack phones — had been reached.
Labour suggested that Gus O’Donnell, the cabinet secretary in 2010, had been among those concerned at Coulson’s appointment — a charge No 10 would only respond to by pointing to evidence given by Lord O’Donnell to the Leveson inquiry that he had not been involved in the appointment of Coulson.
Rupert Murdoch is flying in to London to oversee News UK’s response to the end of the hacking trial, which saw his former chief executive Rebekah Brooks cleared but Coulson, his former News of the World editor, found guilty of hacking charges.
At prime minister’s questions, Ed Miliband accused Cameron of wilful negligence and said the prime minister would “always be remembered as the first ever occupant of his office who brought a criminal into the heart of Downing Street”.
Cameron again apologised for appointing Coulson saying it was the wrong decision and he repeatedly defended himself by saying the Leveson inquiry into press behaviour “looked into all of these questions about the warnings I was given and the response I gave, and he made no criticism of my conduct”. — The Guardian.
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