Four years ago, when David Cameron did not have an experienced tabloid operator like Coulson to advise him, it nearly went horribly wrong. When the raw and newly elected Tory leader first met News International's patriarch Rupert Murdoch, he was intent on projecting himself as a socially tolerant leader with modern ideas who would shake up an outdated Tory Party. In his anxiety to be modern, Cameron described with great enthusiasm how he had enjoyed the new US blockbuster film Brokeback Mountain. Far from being impressed, the ageing Murdoch was appalled that a would-be prime minister should be watching a film containing graphic scenes of gay sex.

In those days, Murdoch had more time for John Whittingdale, the Tory chairman of the Commons committee on culture and media, who had worked for Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street, than for anyone in Cameron's shadow cabinet. He also thought that the Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, was more of a Thatcherite than Cameron.

Cameron's master stroke, in June 2007, was to hire Coulson five months after he had lost his job as editor of the Murdoch-owned News of the World when it emerged that the paper had been bugging royal telephones. It was a controversial appointment that opened Cameron to political attack and is costing the Tory party a hefty salary – reputedly £200,000 a year. But it produced dividends, because it meant that the Tory leader had at his side someone he trusted absolutely, who was also trusted inside the social world of the Murdoch clan.

The Home Office abandoned plans to establish an independent inquiry into the News of the World phone-hacking scandal last year after a senior official warned that the Metropolitan police would "deeply resent" any interference in their investigation, according to a leaked government document.

As Alan Johnson came close today to accusing Scotland Yard of having misled him over the scandal, a leaked Home Office memo shows that the last government decided against calling in Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary after intense internal lobbying.

Stephen Rimmer, the Home Office director general for crime and policing, warned that Scotland Yard would "deeply resent" a review of its investigation by the inspectorate and that it would send a message that "we do not have full confidence" in the Met.

The leaked document emerged on one of the most dramatic days of the phone-hacking scandal which saw pressure mount on Andy Coulson, David Cameron's director of communications and former editor of the News of the World, and on Scotland Yard.

As the government was forced to answer questions about the scandal in the Commons, there were further developments:

read more at the guardian...

LONDON — Labour members of Parliament attacked the government on Monday, saying it should demand that the Metropolitan Police answer new questions about whether legislators’ phone messages had been illegally intercepted by The News of the World.

But the home secretary, Theresa May, responded to a series of angry opposition questions in the House of Commons by saying that “it is for the Metropolitan Police, on an operational matter, to decide what the right course of action is.”

Meanwhile, pressure continued to build on Andy Coulson, the government’s director of communications. Mr. Coulson was editor of The News of the World in 2007 when its royal editor, Clive Goodman, and an investigator it had hired, Glenn Mulcaire, pleaded guilty to illegally intercepting, or hacking, the telephone messages of chief aides to Prince William and Prince Harry.

Mr. Coulson resigned in the wake of the scandal. But he claimed that it was an isolated incident and that he had known nothing about the phone hacking. He was hired as the Conservative Party’s chief spokesman soon afterward.

But recent evidence has cast doubt on Mr. Coulson’s claims. An article in The New York Times Magazine on Sunday quoted a former reporter, Sean Hoare, and an unnamed former editor as saying that Mr. Coulson had known about and encouraged the hacking. More than a dozen reporters and editors currently or formerly with The News of the World described an aggressive newsroom culture in which reporters were encouraged to use any means possible to get stories.

The police responded by saying that they would consider the new material in the article in The Times before deciding whether to go forward with a further investigation.

The article also quoted senior Metropolitan Police officials as saying that the police had failed to fully investigate The News of the World at the time because of Scotland Yard’s close ties to editors at the paper and executives at its parent company, News International.

read more at the New York Times...

A former senior News of the World journalist has gone public to corroborate claims that phone-hacking and other illegal reporting techniques were rife at the tabloid while the prime minister's media adviser, Andy Coulson, was deputy editor and then editor of the paper.

Paul McMullan, a former features executive and then member of the newspaper's investigations team, says that he personally commissioned private investigators to commit several hundred acts which could be regarded as unlawful, that use of illegal techniques was no secret at the paper, and that senior editors, including Coulson, were aware this was going on.

"How can Coulson possibly say he didn't know what was going on with the private investigators?" he asked.

Coulson has always said he had no knowledge of any such activity. News International has maintained that royal reporter Clive Goodman, jailed for hacking phones belonging to members of the royal household, was the only journalist involved in the practice.

McMullan is one of six former News of the World journalists who have independently told the Guardian that Coulson, who was deputy editor from 2000 and editor from January 2003 to January 2007, knew that his reporters were engaging in unlawful acts.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/sep/08/phone-hacking-news-of-the-world-witness

Following further accusations that he knew about illegal phone-tapping at the News of the World when he was the paper's editor, Andy Coulson, the Prime Minister's communications director, has been interviewed by police.

Coulson attended the interview at a solicitor's office in London on Thursday. He was questioned as a witness.

A Downing Street spokesman said on Friday: "Andy Coulson voluntarily attended a meeting with Metropolitan Police officers yesterday morning at a solicitor's office in London. Mr Coulson ­ who first offered to meet the police two months ago ­ was interviewed as a witness and was not cautioned or arrested."

Coulson, who edited the News of the World from 2003 to 2007, has consistently denied having any knowledge of his reporters, with the help of private investigators, regularly hacking into celebrities' voicemail in search of stories.

But recent weeks have seen a welter of accusations from former News of the World journalists that Coulson was well aware of the illegal activity.

Police have been checking whether David Cameron's chief spin doctor, Andy Coulson, knew that a journalist working for him was illegally hacking telephone calls when Mr Coulson was a tabloid newspaper editor. Had it been Kelvin MacKenzie – the most successful and notorious boss in what used to be called Fleet Street – there would have been no need to ask. Everybody would have known he was in it up to his neck. He says so himself.

"Me, I definitely would have known. I would have been all over that information and I would have loved every second of it. I would have been sitting there listening to the voicemails, reading the texts and literally rolling up, killing myself laughing, and also being sure I wasn't going to be sued for libel," Mr MacKenzie announces, with that flamboyant shamelessness that prompted Piers Morgan, whose mentor Mr MacKenzie once was, to describe him as a "dangerous genius".

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/kelvin-mackenzie-if-id-been-coulson-id-have-known-all-about-it-2134208.html

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see toon at top... I definitely would have known...

The insistence of Rupert Murdoch's News of the World that phone hacking was restricted to a single "rogue reporter" unravelled further yesterday when the name of another former senior executive at the paper was linked to the activities of the private investigator at the heart of the scandal.

News Corp has always insisted that the NoW's royal correspondent Clive Goodman operated his phone hacking activities alone and without the knowledge of senior NoW executives, in particular the paper's editor at the time, Andy Coulson, who resigned after the convictions and is now David Cameron's head of communications.

However the High Court heard yesterday that records kept by a private detective on the Sky Sports commentator Andy Gray were annotated with the name "Greg", alongside details such as the former footballer's mobile phone number and voicemail password...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/phonehacking-third-coulson-employee-linked-to-scandal-2187951.html

David Cameron was yesterday accused of "tucking into turkey" with a senior News Corporation executive days after he intervened in the company's bid to take full control of BSkyB.

The Prime Minister went to the Oxfordshire home of Rebekah Brooks during the Christmas holiday, shortly after he stripped the Business Secretary Vince Cable of responsibility for ruling on the deal. (Mr Cable had been caught "declaring war" on the News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch.)

Mr Cameron faces questions over the appropriateness of the visit while News Corp faces a possibly lengthy competition inquiry into its attempt to buy BSkyB.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/pms-impartiality-in-doubt-after-christmas-date-with-murdoch-executive-2190323.html

LONDON — In a sharp political blow to Britain’s dominant Conservatives, Prime Minister David Cameron’s communications director, Andy Coulson, resigned Friday amid questions about the hacking of celebrity telephone calls at the tabloid News of the World while he was in charge there.

Mr. Coulson’s announcement came just one week after British prosecutors said they would order a fresh review of the evidence that had been collected by the police in the phone scandal. It also follows the announcement late last month that Ian Edmondson, a senior editor who had worked for Mr. Coulson, was suspended by the tabloid after the name, “Ian” was mentioned in a document written by a convicted hacker. It was the first time that the newspaper took any action against a news executive in the case.

Mr. Coulson has said repeatedly that he had no knowledge of any hacking, and the newspaper had blamed the hacking on a rogue reporter.

Mr. Cameron said Friday that he was “very sorry” that Mr. Coulson had resigned from his government post. “Andy has told me that the focus on him was impeding his ability to do his job and was starting to prove a distraction for the government,” he said.

Mr. Coulson, in a statement, said: “It’s been a privilege and an honor to work for David Cameron,” and added that “nothing is more important than the government’s task of getting this country back on its feet.”

“Unfortunately,” he said, “ continued coverage of events connected to my old job at the News of the World has made it difficult for me to give the 110 percent needed in this role. I stand by what I’ve said about those events, but when the spokesman needs a spokesman, it’s time to move on.”

He said he would leave within the next few weeks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/22/world/europe/22london.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

The News of the World phone-hacking scandal forced Andy Coulson to resign for a second time yesterday, the former editor quitting his Downing Street post as David Cameron's director of communications.

Mr Coulson asked to see the Prime Minister on Wednesday evening in his Downing Street office and told him that he could no longer carry out his job effectively because of the continuing pressure of allegations against him. Mr Cameron accepted his resignation.

His departure opens the way for News International to admit that phone hacking at its Sunday red-top newspaper was more widespread than it has previously acknowledged. The company is conducting an internal investigation after suspending its assistant editor Ian Edmondson before Christmas. It also faces a string of legal actions from celebrities and politicians who claim their phones were targeted by the paper.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coulsons-departure-takes-heat-off-cameron-ndash-but-not-murdoch-2191248.html

With its dismissal of Ian Edmondson, News International abandoned the mantra it has chanted for four years: that phone hacking carried out by the News of the World was the work of a "rogue reporter". That was the line from January 2007, when the paper's royal editor, Clive Goodman, was jailed for illegally intercepting the royal household's messages.

Andy Coulson, the paper's editor, agreed to resign while denying any knowledge of illegal activities. He didn't go straight away – when Goodman was jailed, Coulson simply promised to make a donation to a charity chosen by the royal princes. Four years later, dozens of alleged victims of the hacking – almost all high-profile figures – have lodged legal actions against Rupert Murdoch's News Corp empire in the High Court.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/ian-burrell-so-much-for-the-theory-of-a-rogue-reporter-2195608.html

see toon at top...

Staff at Wapping HQ sidelined as media mogul finally loses patience with phone-hacking scandal that is spiralling out of control

By Oliver Wright, Whitehall Editor

Rupert Murdoch has sent a team of external American lawyers to Britain to investigate the extent of phone hacking at the News of the World.

The Independent understands that the four independent investigative attorneys were dispatched to London to supervise the trawl through all evidence held by the company to establish who knew what and when.

The revelation suggests growing tensions between News Corporation's corporate leadership in New York and the company's London management. Earlier internal inquiries by News International claimed they had found "no evidence" that anyone other than the NoTW royal editor Clive Goodman had been involved in the hacking, having overseen a trawl through "thousands" of emails.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/murdoch-sends-in-crack-us-lawyers-to-clean-up-news-international-2296116.html

David Cameron has conceded a full independent and public inquiry into the behaviour of the British press in the wake of the hacking scandal after condemning as "absolutely disgusting" the action of News of the World hackers who eavesdropped on the voicemail of 13-year-old murder victim Milly Dowler.

But he refused at Prime Minister's Questions today to step in over the bid by Rupert Murdoch's global empire News Corp to take full control of the satellite media giant, BSkyB.

Ed Miliband called for the bid by Murdoch for BSkyB to be halted and referred to the Competition Commission. The Labour leader warned: "The public will react with disbelief if next week the decision is taken to go ahead with this deal at a time when News International is subject to a major criminal investigation".

But Cameron insisted he had to follow due process on takeovers which ministers have already said does not allow them to take into account the phone-hacking issue, despite claims by Murdoch's critics that the scandal shows there are people in the tycoon’s pay who are not fit to take such a large stake in the British media.

Miliband gave one of his most assured performances yet at the dispatch box, in particular when he demanded that Cameron join him in calling for Rebekah Brooks, CEO of News International and editor of the News of the World at the time of the Milly Dowler hacking, to "consider her position" and when he questioned Cameron's appointment in 2007 of Andy Coulson, Brooks's successor in the editor's chair, as his senior media adviser. Miliband called it a "catastrophic error of judgment" to have appointed Coulson when it was known that a phone-hacking scandal hung over the paper.

Andy Coulson has been told by police that he will be arrested on Friday morning over suspicions that he knew about, or had direct involvement in, the hacking of mobile phones during his editorship of the News of the World.

The Guardian understands that a second arrest is also to be made in the next few days of a former senior journalist at the paper.

Leaks from News International forced police to speed up their plans to arrest the two key suspects in the explosive phone-hacking scandal.

The Guardian knows the identity of the second suspect but is withholding the name to avoid prejudicing the police investigation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/07/andy-coulson-arrest-phone-hacking

The crisis engulfing David Cameron over phone hacking deepened on Saturday as Paddy Ashdown revealed that he had warned No 10 only days after the general election of "terrible damage" to the coalition if he employed Andy Coulson in Downing Street.

The former Liberal Democrat leader, who had been extensively briefed on details that had not been made public for legal reasons, was so convinced that the truth would eventually emerge that he contacted the prime minister's office.

Ashdown, a key player as the Liberal Democrats agonised over whether to join in a coalition with the Tories, told the Observer that, based on what he had been told, it was obvious Coulson's appointment as Cameron's director of communications would be a disaster.

"I warned No 10 within days of the election that they would suffer terrible damage if they did not get rid of Coulson, when these things came out, as it was inevitable they would," he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/09/phone-hacking-andy-coulson-paddy-ashdown

David Cameron said today that he was "extremely sorry" for the furore his appointment of Andy Coulson as his communications chief had caused.

In a Commons statement, the Prime Minister said that with the benefit of "20:20 hindsight" he would not have given the former News of the World editor the job.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-extremely-sorry-over-andy-coulson-2317454.html

Sorry? Hindsight?... Pull the other leg... see toon at top....

News International executives were told four years ago that phone hacking was rife at the News of the World and subsequently paid a jailed employee a quarter of a million pounds after he claimed that Andy Coulson authorised and then tried to hide the extent of it at the newspaper when he was editor.

Previously secret papers show that Rupert Murdoch's most senior lieutenants paid the NOTW's disgraced royal editor, Clive Goodman, £243,000 in compensation soon after he had made damaging accusations against the company and its senior staff.

These included the claims that phone hacking was widely discussed at NOTW editorial meetings until Mr Coulson "banned" mention of it. Mr Goodman also alleged in a letter to the company that Mr Coulson promised him "a job at the newspaper" after he came out of prison if he "did not implicate the paper or any of its staff" in his mitigation plea.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/huge-payoff-for-reporter-who-kept-quiet-about-scale-of-hacking-2338855.html

see toon at top...

The Conservative party is struggling to defend itself against the disclosure that Andy Coulson, its former head of communications, received six-figure payments from News International while working for the party, despite having previously stated categorically that he had no other income.

The party has been asked repeatedly about Coulson's income, insisting that he was not paid by anyone else during his time at Conservative party HQ and in Downing Street. It offered comprehensive assurances that he had no other income as recently as last month, and apparently after seeking assurances directly from Coulson.

The revelation on Monday night that he received the severance payments in instalments in 2007, the first year he was employed by George Osborne and David Cameron, and also continued to use a company car and receive health insurance from News International until the beginning of 2010, raises the possibility that the payments could have been concealed from the party.

But in a sign of the continued loyalty to Coulson at the top of the government, senior sources in the Conservative party stressed that the severance payments were different from receiving a salary or co-payment from News International. The party refused to answer detailed questions about what assurances Coulson gave about his earnings, whom he had given assurances to, and when.

...

Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat peer, said: "There is a clear conflict of interest in the director of communications for the Conservative party driving a company car and using health insurance provided by News International. Clearly he didn't come clean on this with the party. Have we got to the bottom of it even now?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/23/andy-coulson-payments-tories

Andy Coulson appears to have broken House of Commons rules by failing to declare payments and benefits he received from News International while holding a parliamentary pass sponsored by David Cameron.

Registers held in the Commons archive, seen by the Guardian, reveal that in September 2007 – three months after Coulson was employed by Cameron's office – the former News of the World editor failed to declare the health insurance, company car and severance payments he was receiving from his old employers.

The records also show that for at least two months after he resigned from his position as No 10's head of communications in January this year, Coulson continued to hold a parliamentary pass, sponsored by Downing Street, which allowed him access to parliament as a No 10 employee.

That will raise new questions about whether Coulson – who Cameron has admitted seeing on a social basis since his resignation – continued to perform an unofficial role for the Tories after he had left.

The Labour MP Tom Watson called for the parliamentary commissioner for standards to investigate.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/24/andy-coulson-news-international-payments

see toon at top....

"Two hundred grand to 250 is Premier League… what you would get is, when we talk about your donations the first thing we want to do is get you at the Cameron/Osborne dinners," he says.

"You do really pick up a lot of information and when you see the Prime Minister, you're seeing David Cameron, not the Prime Minister.

"But within that room everything is confidential - you can ask him practically any question you want.

"If you're unhappy about something, we will listen to you and put it into the policy committee at number 10 - we feed all feedback to the policy committee." 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17501618

David Cameron, the British prime minister, allowed his former spokesman, Andrew Coulson, access to some of the government's most sensitive secrets without full security clearance, an inquiry has been told.

Asked on Thursday by Robert Jay, the lead lawyer for judge Brian Leveson, who heads the inquiry, whether he had any unsupervised access to information designated top secret, Coulson, former editor of the News of the World, said: "I may have done, yes."

"Did you ever attend meetings of the national security council?" Jay asked about a body of senior politicians, defence and intelligence chiefs which is chaired by the prime minister.

"Yes," Coulson said.

The Leveson inquiry heard that Coulson had been asked few questions by Cameron's Conservative Party about his past and that the party did not carry out full security checks.

A full security clearance procedure includes a review of the applicant's finances and detailed interviews about their past.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2012/05/2012510174542885161.html

See toon at top... 

Jeremy Hunt stood accused last night of conspiring with News International to prevent a public inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/hunt-asked-murdoch-to-steer-no-10s-policy-on-hacking-7738000.html

Former Downing Street adviser Andy Coulson has been found guilty of phone hacking as the jury has returned partial verdicts in the long-running trial at the Old Bailey.

Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, has been cleared of all charges against her as have four other defendants, including Brooks's husband Charlie.

After eight days of deliberations, the jury has not been able to come to a unanimous verdict on the remaining bribery charges against Coulson and former royal correspondent Clive Goodman.

The judge has said he will accept a majority verdict of 10 jurors to one on that charge.

The defendants had all denied the charges, which arose from revelations in July 2011 the British newspaper had hacked the mobile phone voicemails of a teenage girl who was later found murdered.

The aftermath forced Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch to shut down the newspaper in disgrace after 168 years in print.

Brooks was accused of being complicit in journalists' hacking of phones to find exclusive stories at the paper she edited from 2000 to 2003.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-24/coulson-guilty-but-brooks-acquitted-of-phone-hacking/5544930