Saturday, July 23, 2011

David Cameron - Cameron Refuses To Deny Discussing Bskyb Bid With News International Politics

The prime minister has refused to deny that he discussed the BSkyB bid with senior executives at News International since the election.

Repeatedly pressed on the issue following a Commons statement on the phone hacking scandal, David Cameron would only say: "I have never had one inappropriate conversation."

Cameron was first asked whether the bid was raised in any of his meetings with News Corp figures and whether he discussed it with the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt by Labour's Ed Miliband in a flurry of questions in response to a Commons statement on the phone hacking scandal.

But Cameron told the Labour leader to "stop punting feeble conspiracy theories and start rising to the level of events".

He told MPs there had been no "inappropriate conversation" pointing to the fact that Rebekah Brooks, former chief executive of News International, had said the same thing to the culture select committee on Tuesday.

Labour's Barry Gardiner later asked him whether this meant he had had "appropriate" conversations during some of the 26 listed meetings he had with senior figures at News International.

Cameron replied: "All my conversations are appropriate."

The prime minister told MPs his cabinet secretary had ruled "very clearly" that no ministerial code was broken in relation to the BSkyB merger and meetings with News International executives.

"The cabinet secretary has ruled very clearly that the code was not broken not least because I had asked to be entirely excluded from the decision."

He added: "I had no responsibility for the BSkyB takeover. I specifically asked to be taken out of any of the decision making and any of the information because I didn't want to put myself in any sort of compromising position.

"I was very clear about that, so much so that I didn't even know when many of the key announcements were being made."

The issues that have surfaced over the phone-hacking scandal provoked heated exchanges as Labour grilled Cameron on the details surrounding Tory links with News International, while the Conservatives sought to highlight Labour's own track record with the company, and their own inaction in office, as well as Miliband's decision to recruit Tom Baldwin, a former journalist from the News International stable, as his press chief.

Cameron expressed regret at hiring Andy Coulson as his own director of communications in light of the "furore" that has ensued, and said he would be ready to issue a "profound apology" if it turned out he had been misled by Coulson, whom he has described as a friend.

He defended the decision of his chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, to refuse a police briefing on the hacking investigation as "entirely appropriate", and insisted he learned only three days ago that Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the News of the World, had advised Coulson before the general election.

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