LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron dragged his political foes into Britain’s phone-hacking scandal at a raucous session of Parliament on Wednesday, distancing himself from a former aide at the heart of the allegations and denying his staff tried to thwart police investigations.
Cameron, who flew back from Africa early for the emergency session, defended his decision to hire former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as his communications chief, saying Coulson’s work in government had been untarnished.
Coulson was arrested this month in connection with allegations that reporters at the tabloid intercepted voice mails of celebrities and crime victims to get scoops.
Cameron reminded lawmakers that Coulson has not been found guilty of anything. But the prime minister also made his strongest effort yet to distance himself from his former aide.
“With 2 0/20 hindsight . . . I would not have offered him the job, and I expect that he wouldn’t have taken it,” Cameron told lawmakers who packed the House of Commons. “You live and you learn, and believe you me, I have learnt.”
Cameron then turned the spotlight on the Labor Party, saying that most British politicians had tried to court media baron Rupert Murdoch — whose News Corp. owned the defunct News of the World and still owns three other British newspapers.
Labor’s hires cited
The prime minister warned that Labor should be careful before casting stones about hiring choices. Former Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair’s communications director, Alastair Campbell, was accused of exaggerating government documents in the lead-up to the Iraq war, and the party’s former special adviser Damian McBride quit amid allegations he circulated scurrilous rumors about political opponents.
“You’ve still got Tom Baldwin working in your office!” Cameron exclaimed, referring to Labor’s political strategist who has been accused of illegally obtaining private banking information in 1999 while working as a journalist for The Times, another Murdoch paper.
A parliamentary committee investigating the widening scandal released a scathing report Wednesday accusing Murdoch companies of “deliberately trying to thwart a criminal investigation” into the allegations and lambasting the London Metropolitan police for its failed inquiry.
And it seems more is yet to come.
Many remain to be told
Only about 200 of the nearly 4,000 people whose information is believed to have been targeted have been notified by police, and detectives have started a separate inquiry into whether other news organizations over the years have breached data-privacy laws.
Scotland Yard said Wednesday that it was increasing the number of staff assigned to the phone-hacking inquiry from 45 to 60.
Murdoch flew out of London on Wednesday, a day after he and his son James were quizzed for three hours by a parliamentary committee.
Also Wednesday, News Corp. said it would no longer pay the legal fees for Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator at the center of the hacking and partly lifted a confidentiality agreement on one of its law firms to allow the firm to give evidence to Parliament and to the police, The New York Times reported.
