: QUESTIONS ABOUT A WHISTLE-BLOWER'S TESTIMONY
Earlier in the debate, Ed Miliband, the opposition leader, read aloud from an article on phone hacking at The News of the World published by The New York Times Magazine on Sept. 1, 2010. That article included statements by two sources that Andy Coulson, a former editor of The News of the World who was at the time a media adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron, knew about and approved of phone hacking by his reporters.
In that article, my colleagues Don Van Natta Jr., Jo Becker and Graham Bowley reported:A dozen former reporters said in interviews that hacking was pervasive at News of the World. "Everyone knew," one longtime reporter said. "The office cat knew."
Sean Hoare, a former reporter and onetime close friend of Coulson's, also recalled discussing hacking. The two men first worked together at The Sun, where, Hoare said, he played tape recordings of hacked messages for Coulson. At News of the World, Hoare said he continued to inform Coulson of his pursuits. Coulson "actively encouraged me to do it," Hoare said.
John Whittingdale, the chairman of the Commons committee on culture. media and sport, points out that one of the two sources who connected Mr. Coulson to phone hacking was anonymous. The other, he notes, was Sean Hoare, a former News of the World reporter who died on Monday.
LAWYERS ASK MURDOCHS TO ALLOW THEM TO TESTIFY
During their appearance, the two men repeatedly said that they had relied legal advice from a respected law firm, Harbottle & Lewis, for advice on whether or not a cache of 2,500 internal e-mails contained no evidence of wrongdoing by senior editors at The News of the World.
Mr. Whittingdale says that News Corporation has not yet agreed to the request from Harbottle & Lewis, but urges the company to do so, "in the light of the assurances that we were given of their willingness to cooperate fully."
MILIBAND DEFENDS HIS MEDIA ADVISER
Ed Miliband, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, rises to give his party's view on the motion before the House of Commons, "that this House has considered public confidence in the media and the police."
He says that while there are indeed other important issues, the revelations that phone hacking was used to gather private information about not just celebrities and politicians but also "about the lives of others who never sought the public eye," makes it vital to discuss the misconduct fully and put a stop to it.
Mr. Miliband says, "we do not want to live in a country where the depraved deletion of a dead teenager" is considered acceptable. He adds that failures of the police and politicians to stop phone hacking need to end.
From the Conservative benches, Mr. Miliband is asked about the conduct of one of his current aides, Tom Baldwin, who is a former reporter at The Times of London. A leading Conservative, Lord Ashcroft, who helped finance the last election campaign by his party, claimed this month that Mr. Baldwin had used illegal techniques to obtain his bank records when he was a reporter.
Mr. Miliband replies that he has asked Mr. Baldwin and his former employer, The Times, which is also owned by Rupert Murdoch, about this allegation and both have denied that there is anything to it. The Times, Mr. Miliband says, "specifically confirm that he did nothing illegal."
As the Conservative benches laugh at the fact that Mr. Miliband is falling back on assurances from one of Mr. Murdoch's newspapers, the leader of the opposition points out that, when he was at The Times, "Tom Baldwin's line manager was the current education secretary."
A 'PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL' LETTER FROM JOHN YATES
Alan Johnson, who was the home secretary before last year's election, says that John Yates, the former assistant commissioner of Scotland Yard, told him in "a private and confidential letter" last week that the reason that a new police investigation into phone hacking commenced this year is that "in January 2011, News International began to cooperate properly with the police."
Mr. Johnson asks Mr. Cameron if the fact that this cooperation began at about the same time that Andy Coulson resigned from government was "a coincidence."
DID CAMERON HAVE ADVANCE WARNING OF NEW INVESTIGATION?
Barry Gardiner, a Labour member of Parliament, intervenes to ask the prime minister if he had any advance notice of the new police investigation into phone hacking, which began just days after Andy Coulson resigned as his media adviser.
Mr. Cameron says that he cannot speak for all of his staff, but he did not have any such warning himself.
MAIN DEBATE BEGINS ON PHONE HACKING
Moving on from the discussion of the prime minister's statement on phone hacking, a formal debate in the House Commons begins with remarks from Mr. Cameron.
He says that Parliament has led the public debate on phone hacking in recent weeks, which led to the end of News Corporation's bid for full control of BSkyB, the satellite television network.
MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT ASKED TO DROP THEIR PHONES
As the debate over phone hacking continues in Westminster, the Commons speaker, John Bercow, asks members of Parliament who are standing in an attempt to attract his notice to "stop fiddling with" their phones as they do so.
NEWS CORP. REPORTEDLY STOPS PAYING MULCAIRE LEGAL FEES
Laura Kuenssberg, chief political correspondent for The BBC News Channel, reports on Twitter that "News Corp. is terminating the payment of legal fees to Glen Muclaire, the private investigator convicted of hacking." Mr. Mulcaire was jailed in 2007 for the phone hacking he did on behalf of The News of the World.
During his testimony to the Commons select committee on home affairs on Tuesday, James Murdoch admitted that his company had continued to pay legal fees for Mr. Mulcaire after he was released from prison, even as it said that the investigator's phone hacking operation was despicable and unsanctioned by editors and executives.
REQUEST TO REMOVE COULSON'S COMMONS PASS
Ann Clwyd, a Labour member of Parliament, asks Mr. Cameron to remove the pass which allows Andy Coulson to continue to "wander the halls" of the House of Commons. Referring to Mr. Coulson, Ms. Clwyd suggests that the prime minister "obviously cannot smell a rat when he has one in his midst."
Mr. Cameron chides Ms. Clwyd's use of metaphor and does not address the question of Mr. Coulson retaining his pass, despite having resigned from the government in January.
'GOTCHA!'
Pressed further about his employment of Mr. Coulson, the prime minister names former journalists who have worked as media advisers to the Labour Party and says, "Gotcha!"
Mr. Cameron mentioned both Alastair Campbell, a former tabloid journalist who worked as Tony Blair's media strategist, and Tom Baldwin, a former reporter for Rupert Murdoch's Times of London who is currently an aide to the Labour leader Ed Miliband.
CAMERON'S 'PERMANENT CONVERSATION' WITH COULSON
Mr. Cameron is asked another direct question about how he responded in 2010 to allegations that his media adviser, Andy Coulson, knew about phone hacking when he was the editor of The News of the World.
The prime minister says that, as new reports were published last year about phone hacking, he had "a permanent conversation if you like," with Mr. Coulson asking all the time, "was this new evidence that he knew about phone hacking?" Mr. Cameron adds, "if it was he would have to go."
Mr. Cameron leaves unanswered the question of whether any doubts about Mr. Coulson's knowledge of phone hacking were raised in his mind by those reports.
CAMERON SET HIMSELF A 'TEST' ON COULSON
Emily Thornberry, a Labour member of Parliament, asks Mr. Cameron to say when he read the Sept. 1, 2010 New York Times article which suggested that Andy Coulson did know about phone hacking.
Mr. Cameron replies that the article's allegations were republished in the British press. "I set myself a credible test," he says, "if anybody brought me credible information that he knew about hacking, I'd fire him."
In response to further questions, Mr. Cameron refuses to say if he ever discussed News Corporation's effort to take full control of the satellite broadcaster BSkyB with executives from that company.
ON CAMERON'S FRIENDSHIP WITH BROOKS
David Lammy, a Labour member of Parliament, describes informal meetings Mr. Cameron has had with his friend, Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of New International, and asks if "such informality on his behalf" is improper.
Mr. Cameron replies that it is not, and notes that Ms. Brooks said in her testimony on Tuesday that she visited the prime minister's residence about six times a year when Labour was in power. He also refers to the fact that Ms. Brooks had a "sleepover" at No. 10 Downing Street when Gordon Brown was prime minister. He says that he has never seen Ms. Brooks "in her pajamas."
ON THE NEW HOME AFFAIRS SELECT COMMITTEE REPORT
Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Commons select committee on home affairs, asks Mr. Cameron if he has had time to read his panel's new report, published early on Wednesday, which suggests that News Corporation's British newspaper division, News International, "deliberately" tried to obstruct the initial police investigation of phone hacking.
Mr. Vaz also says that a former director of public prosecutions told the committee that any proper review of a cache of internal News International e-mails, which have been held by the law firm Harbottle & Lewis for years, would have made it plain in five minutes that crimes were committed.
As Christopher Hope of The Daily Telegraph reported on Wednesday morning:
Harbottle & Lewis took possession of hundreds of internal emails from the News of the World in 2007 after being hired by News International.
The firm indicated in a short letter to News International that the emails did not show wider evidence of criminality.
This document was relied upon by the publisher during parliamentary inquiries in 2009. Yesterday, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, the former director of public prosecutions, who in May was asked to review the information, told members of the Commons media select committee that evidence of criminality in the files was "blindingly obvious".
He said that if police had seen the scale of criminality in the file when it was compiled in 2007 they would have opened a corruption inquiry immediately.
WHAT WAS CAMERON'S RESPONSE TO TIMES ARTICLE ?
Mr. Cameron is pressed to say what his response was to The New York Times article last September that suggested that Andy Coulson knew about and sanctioned phone hacking when he was a tabloid.
Mr. Cameron replies that there was no new information in that article to raise any questions in his mind. That article, like a July, 2009 report in The Guardian, dealt not with new evidence gathered by the police after Mr. Coulson resigned, but about how much of the evidence gathered by the police in 2006 was not properly examined.
MILIBAND CLAIMS CAMERON HAD A 'CONFLICT OF INTEREST '
Ed Miliband, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, asks Mr. Cameron to address what he calls the prime minister's "conflict of interest" regarding wrongdoing at the British newspaper division of News Corporation. Mr. Miliband claims that Mr. Cameron's aides "built a wall of silence between the facts and the prime minister."
The opposition leader suggests that Mr. Cameron's failure to ask questions about Mr. Coulson's role in phone hacking after an article published by The New York Times on Sept. 1, 2010 suggested that the practice had been more widespread during his editorship than the initial police investigation revealed.
In response, Mr. Cameron objects that he had now made all of his meetings with News Corporation officials before the election public, but Labour Party leaders have not done so. He continues to detail what he says was the overly close relationship between Labour officials and editors and executives in Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
CAMERON'S STATEMENT ON HIRING COULSON
Mr. Cameron says that his chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, behaved entirely properly in refusing to accept a briefing from John Yates, the assistant police commissioner, on phone hacking, last September. He says that it would have been improper for anyone on his staff to receive privileged information on police inquiries into phone hacking at The News of the World.
It emerged that in September 2010 after allegations appeared in the New York Times about the extent of phone hacking at the NoW, the Met offered the PM a briefing.
The prime minister continues to say that Neil Wallis, a former deputy editor of The News of the World, was never employed by the Conservative Party. Mr. Wallis, who was arrested last week in connection with phone hacking, might, Mr. Cameron adds, have provided informal advice to Andy Coulson, who was then Mr. Cameron's media aide, before last year's election.
Mr. Cameron then defends his decision to employ Andy Coulson in 2007, just months after he had resigned from The News of the World over the first reported instances of phone hacking. Mr. Cameron says that if Mr. Coulson knew about phone hacking, "he will not only have lied to me," but also "perjured himself in a court of law." Mr. Cameron adds, "I have an old-fashioned view about innocent until proven guilty," but says that "if it turns out I have been lied to," by Mr. Coulson, he will then apologize for the decision to hire him.
He also says that Mr. Coulson's "work at Downing Street has not been the subject of any serious complaint."
CAMERON'S PROMISES TO ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS
At the start of his statement, Mr. Cameron says that he will review recent developments and name the people he has appointed to a panel of inquiry into phone hacking and media practices. He also promises to answer "at some length all of the questions" that have been raised about his relationship to Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World who was arrested recently in connection with a new police investigation into the scandal.
Earlier in the debate, Ed Miliband, the opposition leader, read aloud from an article on phone hacking at The News of the World published by The New York Times Magazine on Sept. 1, 2010. That article included statements by two sources that Andy Coulson, a former editor of The News of the World who was at the time a media adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron, knew about and approved of phone hacking by his reporters.
In that article, my colleagues Don Van Natta Jr., Jo Becker and Graham Bowley reported:A dozen former reporters said in interviews that hacking was pervasive at News of the World. "Everyone knew," one longtime reporter said. "The office cat knew."
Sean Hoare, a former reporter and onetime close friend of Coulson's, also recalled discussing hacking. The two men first worked together at The Sun, where, Hoare said, he played tape recordings of hacked messages for Coulson. At News of the World, Hoare said he continued to inform Coulson of his pursuits. Coulson "actively encouraged me to do it," Hoare said.
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John Whittingdale, the chairman of the Commons committee on culture. media and sport, points out that one of the two sources who connected Mr. Coulson to phone hacking was anonymous. The other, he notes, was Sean Hoare, a former News of the World reporter who died on Monday.
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LAWYERS ASK MURDOCHS TO ALLOW THEM TO TESTIFY
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During their appearance, the two men repeatedly said that they had relied legal advice from a respected law firm, Harbottle & Lewis, for advice on whether or not a cache of 2,500 internal e-mails contained no evidence of wrongdoing by senior editors at The News of the World.
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Mr. Whittingdale says that News Corporation has not yet agreed to the request from Harbottle & Lewis, but urges the company to do so, "in the light of the assurances that we were given of their willingness to cooperate fully."
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MILIBAND DEFENDS HIS MEDIA ADVISER
Ed Miliband, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, rises to give his party's view on the motion before the House of Commons, "that this House has considered public confidence in the media and the police."
He says that while there are indeed other important issues, the revelations that phone hacking was used to gather private information about not just celebrities and politicians but also "about the lives of others who never sought the public eye," makes it vital to discuss the misconduct fully and put a stop to it.
Mr. Miliband says, "we do not want to live in a country where the depraved deletion of a dead teenager" is considered acceptable. He adds that failures of the police and politicians to stop phone hacking need to end.
From the Conservative benches, Mr. Miliband is asked about the conduct of one of his current aides, Tom Baldwin, who is a former reporter at The Times of London. A leading Conservative, Lord Ashcroft, who helped finance the last election campaign by his party, claimed this month that Mr. Baldwin had used illegal techniques to obtain his bank records when he was a reporter.
Mr. Miliband replies that he has asked Mr. Baldwin and his former employer, The Times, which is also owned by Rupert Murdoch, about this allegation and both have denied that there is anything to it. The Times, Mr. Miliband says, "specifically confirm that he did nothing illegal."
As the Conservative benches laugh at the fact that Mr. Miliband is falling back on assurances from one of Mr. Murdoch's newspapers, the leader of the opposition points out that, when he was at The Times, "Tom Baldwin's line manager was the current education secretary."
A 'PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL' LETTER FROM JOHN YATES
Alan Johnson, who was the home secretary before last year's election, says that John Yates, the former assistant commissioner of Scotland Yard, told him in "a private and confidential letter" last week that the reason that a new police investigation into phone hacking commenced this year is that "in January 2011, News International began to cooperate properly with the police."
Mr. Johnson asks Mr. Cameron if the fact that this cooperation began at about the same time that Andy Coulson resigned from government was "a coincidence."
DID CAMERON HAVE ADVANCE WARNING OF NEW INVESTIGATION?
Barry Gardiner, a Labour member of Parliament, intervenes to ask the prime minister if he had any advance notice of the new police investigation into phone hacking, which began just days after Andy Coulson resigned as his media adviser.
Mr. Cameron says that he cannot speak for all of his staff, but he did not have any such warning himself.
MAIN DEBATE BEGINS ON PHONE HACKING
Moving on from the discussion of the prime minister's statement on phone hacking, a formal debate in the House Commons begins with remarks from Mr. Cameron.
He says that Parliament has led the public debate on phone hacking in recent weeks, which led to the end of News Corporation's bid for full control of BSkyB, the satellite television network.
MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT ASKED TO DROP THEIR PHONES
As the debate over phone hacking continues in Westminster, the Commons speaker, John Bercow, asks members of Parliament who are standing in an attempt to attract his notice to "stop fiddling with" their phones as they do so.
NEWS CORP. REPORTEDLY STOPS PAYING MULCAIRE LEGAL FEES
Laura Kuenssberg, chief political correspondent for The BBC News Channel, reports on Twitter that "News Corp. is terminating the payment of legal fees to Glen Muclaire, the private investigator convicted of hacking." Mr. Mulcaire was jailed in 2007 for the phone hacking he did on behalf of The News of the World.
During his testimony to the Commons select committee on home affairs on Tuesday, James Murdoch admitted that his company had continued to pay legal fees for Mr. Mulcaire after he was released from prison, even as it said that the investigator's phone hacking operation was despicable and unsanctioned by editors and executives.
REQUEST TO REMOVE COULSON'S COMMONS PASS
Ann Clwyd, a Labour member of Parliament, asks Mr. Cameron to remove the pass which allows Andy Coulson to continue to "wander the halls" of the House of Commons. Referring to Mr. Coulson, Ms. Clwyd suggests that the prime minister "obviously cannot smell a rat when he has one in his midst."
Mr. Cameron chides Ms. Clwyd's use of metaphor and does not address the question of Mr. Coulson retaining his pass, despite having resigned from the government in January.
'GOTCHA!'
Pressed further about his employment of Mr. Coulson, the prime minister names former journalists who have worked as media advisers to the Labour Party and says, "Gotcha!"
Mr. Cameron mentioned both Alastair Campbell, a former tabloid journalist who worked as Tony Blair's media strategist, and Tom Baldwin, a former reporter for Rupert Murdoch's Times of London who is currently an aide to the Labour leader Ed Miliband.
CAMERON'S 'PERMANENT CONVERSATION' WITH COULSON
Mr. Cameron is asked another direct question about how he responded in 2010 to allegations that his media adviser, Andy Coulson, knew about phone hacking when he was the editor of The News of the World.
The prime minister says that, as new reports were published last year about phone hacking, he had "a permanent conversation if you like," with Mr. Coulson asking all the time, "was this new evidence that he knew about phone hacking?" Mr. Cameron adds, "if it was he would have to go."
Mr. Cameron leaves unanswered the question of whether any doubts about Mr. Coulson's knowledge of phone hacking were raised in his mind by those reports.
CAMERON SET HIMSELF A 'TEST' ON COULSON
Emily Thornberry, a Labour member of Parliament, asks Mr. Cameron to say when he read the Sept. 1, 2010 New York Times article which suggested that Andy Coulson did know about phone hacking.
Mr. Cameron replies that the article's allegations were republished in the British press. "I set myself a credible test," he says, "if anybody brought me credible information that he knew about hacking, I'd fire him."
In response to further questions, Mr. Cameron refuses to say if he ever discussed News Corporation's effort to take full control of the satellite broadcaster BSkyB with executives from that company.
ON CAMERON'S FRIENDSHIP WITH BROOKS
David Lammy, a Labour member of Parliament, describes informal meetings Mr. Cameron has had with his friend, Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of New International, and asks if "such informality on his behalf" is improper.
Mr. Cameron replies that it is not, and notes that Ms. Brooks said in her testimony on Tuesday that she visited the prime minister's residence about six times a year when Labour was in power. He also refers to the fact that Ms. Brooks had a "sleepover" at No. 10 Downing Street when Gordon Brown was prime minister. He says that he has never seen Ms. Brooks "in her pajamas."
ON THE NEW HOME AFFAIRS SELECT COMMITTEE REPORT
Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Commons select committee on home affairs, asks Mr. Cameron if he has had time to read his panel's new report, published early on Wednesday, which suggests that News Corporation's British newspaper division, News International, "deliberately" tried to obstruct the initial police investigation of phone hacking.
Mr. Vaz also says that a former director of public prosecutions told the committee that any proper review of a cache of internal News International e-mails, which have been held by the law firm Harbottle & Lewis for years, would have made it plain in five minutes that crimes were committed.
As Christopher Hope of The Daily Telegraph reported on Wednesday morning:
Harbottle & Lewis took possession of hundreds of internal emails from the News of the World in 2007 after being hired by News International.
The firm indicated in a short letter to News International that the emails did not show wider evidence of criminality.
This document was relied upon by the publisher during parliamentary inquiries in 2009. Yesterday, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, the former director of public prosecutions, who in May was asked to review the information, told members of the Commons media select committee that evidence of criminality in the files was "blindingly obvious".
He said that if police had seen the scale of criminality in the file when it was compiled in 2007 they would have opened a corruption inquiry immediately.
WHAT WAS CAMERON'S RESPONSE TO TIMES ARTICLE ?
Mr. Cameron is pressed to say what his response was to The New York Times article last September that suggested that Andy Coulson knew about and sanctioned phone hacking when he was a tabloid.
Mr. Cameron replies that there was no new information in that article to raise any questions in his mind. That article, like a July, 2009 report in The Guardian, dealt not with new evidence gathered by the police after Mr. Coulson resigned, but about how much of the evidence gathered by the police in 2006 was not properly examined.
MILIBAND CLAIMS CAMERON HAD A 'CONFLICT OF INTEREST '
Ed Miliband, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, asks Mr. Cameron to address what he calls the prime minister's "conflict of interest" regarding wrongdoing at the British newspaper division of News Corporation. Mr. Miliband claims that Mr. Cameron's aides "built a wall of silence between the facts and the prime minister."
The opposition leader suggests that Mr. Cameron's failure to ask questions about Mr. Coulson's role in phone hacking after an article published by The New York Times on Sept. 1, 2010 suggested that the practice had been more widespread during his editorship than the initial police investigation revealed.
In response, Mr. Cameron objects that he had now made all of his meetings with News Corporation officials before the election public, but Labour Party leaders have not done so. He continues to detail what he says was the overly close relationship between Labour officials and editors and executives in Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
CAMERON'S STATEMENT ON HIRING COULSON
Mr. Cameron says that his chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, behaved entirely properly in refusing to accept a briefing from John Yates, the assistant police commissioner, on phone hacking, last September. He says that it would have been improper for anyone on his staff to receive privileged information on police inquiries into phone hacking at The News of the World.
It emerged that in September 2010 after allegations appeared in the New York Times about the extent of phone hacking at the NoW, the Met offered the PM a briefing.
The prime minister continues to say that Neil Wallis, a former deputy editor of The News of the World, was never employed by the Conservative Party. Mr. Wallis, who was arrested last week in connection with phone hacking, might, Mr. Cameron adds, have provided informal advice to Andy Coulson, who was then Mr. Cameron's media aide, before last year's election.
Mr. Cameron then defends his decision to employ Andy Coulson in 2007, just months after he had resigned from The News of the World over the first reported instances of phone hacking. Mr. Cameron says that if Mr. Coulson knew about phone hacking, "he will not only have lied to me," but also "perjured himself in a court of law." Mr. Cameron adds, "I have an old-fashioned view about innocent until proven guilty," but says that "if it turns out I have been lied to," by Mr. Coulson, he will then apologize for the decision to hire him.
He also says that Mr. Coulson's "work at Downing Street has not been the subject of any serious complaint."
CAMERON'S PROMISES TO ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS
At the start of his statement, Mr. Cameron says that he will review recent developments and name the people he has appointed to a panel of inquiry into phone hacking and media practices. He also promises to answer "at some length all of the questions" that have been raised about his relationship to Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World who was arrested recently in connection with a new police investigation into the scandal.
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