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Subscribe to RSSDavid Cameron testified at the Leveson Inquiry that there was never any 'overt or covert' agreement with News International. The Prime Minister admits relations between the press and politicians have become too close, but denied any deal was made between the two. ITN's political correspondent Alex Forrest reports.
LONDON -- British Prime Minister David Cameron, under fire for courting an exclusive media clique led by Rupert Murdoch, appeared before a judicial inquiry on Thursday to try to neuter claims his ministers tailored policy to further Murdoch's interests.
Cameron's once-cozy ties with Murdoch's inner circle mean he is under pressure to pull off a virtuoso performance at the inquiry, which has sharpened the perception that Britain has been run for years by an elite that fawned on the News Corp chairman.
The coalition government has divided along party lines over Cameron's backing for a minister accused of doing Murdoch's bidding when responsible for impartial oversight, as he struggles with an economy in recession and growing unease about his leadership within his own party.
Cameron, 45, who set up the Leveson inquiry into media ethics himself last year after a newspaper phone-hacking scandal erupted, is due to be questioned for at least five hours, streamed live on television.
Read more on this story from Britain's ITV News
Early in the session, Cameron characterized the relationship between Britain's media and politicians as "bad."
"I think a lot of politicians think the press always get it wrong... a lot of the press think politicians are in it for themselves," ITV News quoted Cameron as saying.
Vanity Fair's Sarah Ellison joins NOW w/ Alex Wagner to share her coverage on Rupert Murdoch's media empire that has been marred by investigations into a widespread hacking scandal.
Cameron used to sign his frequent text messages to News Corp executive Rebekah Brooks with an affectionate "LOL" -- which he admitted he thought meant "lots of love" -- and employed another Murdoch editor, Andy Coulson, as his trusted spokesman.
Former top aide to UK PM David Cameron charged in perjury case
Cameron ordered the inquiry after the News of the World, the Sunday tabloid newspaper both Brooks and Coulson had once edited, was found to have hacked into the voicemail of, among others, a murdered schoolgirl to get stories.
'Lapses of judgment'
The Conservative prime minister has said politicians from both his party and the opposition Labour Party were too close to the Murdoch media empire and has vowed to resolve the problem, no matter how messy the process.
But if Cameron had hoped the inquiry might take some heat out of the phone-hacking scandal, it has done the opposite; week after week of revelations have been served up casting British politicians as courtiers to king Murdoch.
Former UK PM accuses Murdoch of misleading inquiry into phone-hack scandal
"He did not foresee that it would morph into a form of war crimes tribunal," Max Hastings, one of Britain's most influential journalists, wrote in the Financial Times. "Revelations about his lapses of judgment weaken his authority to lead Britain."
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair testified this morning about his close ties to media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who's News of the World tabloid is in the middle of a phone-hacking scandal. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.
The prime minister has been embarrassed by his association with the so-called "Chipping Norton" set, a high-powered social scene centered around the picturesque market town in Oxfordshire. Cameron, Brooks and Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth were among the high-flying friends with luxurious country homes in the area.
Reports: UK PM leaves 8-year-old daughter in the pub
Brooks and her husband Charlie, an erstwhile horse-riding partner of Cameron, are now charged with perverting the course of justice by allegedly hiding evidence from police investigating phone-hacking.
Former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks and her husband, Charlie Brooks, have been charged with perverting the course of justice during the U.K. phone hacking scandal. ITV's Keir Simmons reports.
The spectacle of a prime minister questioned under oath by one of London's top barristers on live television is a daunting prospect for Cameron's supporters, who are already reeling from criticism that he is a lightweight politician out of touch with the voters.
The prime minister's aides said he was doing "a lot of preparation" and is being briefed by lawyers ahead of his appearance at the inquiry, where he can afford few mistakes, given his party's slump in the polls in recent months.
Murdoch not 'a fit person' to run major firm, UK lawmakers say
Cameron is under fire for shielding Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, a Conservative minister, who is accused by Labour of being far too helpful to News Corp while in charge of ruling on the company's bid for full ownership of BSkyB.
Hunt was meant to be an impartial overseer of the $12.5 billion bid for the pay-TV operator, but testimony by Murdoch's executive son James at the Leveson inquiry appeared to show that Hunt's office was in regular contact with News Corp and may have given it confidential information.
Cameron's Liberal Democrat coalition partners abstained on Wednesday from a parliamentary vote on a motion calling for the prime minister to order an inquiry into Hunt's actions, underscoring the divide in the coalition.
Hunt's special adviser resigned over the affair.
'War criminal': Tony Blair heckled during inquiry into Murdoch scandal
In a sign of the concern inside Number 10 Downing Street, aides circulated a letter from the prime minister saying that he would outline measures to increase transparency on special advisers' work and shed more light on decisions such as the one entrusted to Hunt over BSkyB.
The prime minister is also likely to be questioned about Cameron's decision to appoint Coulson as his communications adviser, even though he had resigned as editor of the News of the World after a reporter there was jailed for phone-hacking.
Coulson was charged with perjury last month for remarks he made in court over the hacking scandal.
Reuters and ITV News contributed to this report. ITV News is NBC's British partner.
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Leave a Comment:
'...politicians think the press always get it wrong... a lot of the press think politicians are in it for themselves,"
Right on both counts especially the second.........at least in the US so probably in the UK as well.
Hey about investigating in the US how Murdoch got a US citizenship under Reagan to buy our country?
Why is it Canada will not allow them to be called a NEWS STATION - but entertainment and we call them News
Time to clean up all of these non-news undereducated bozos into the trash can
I agree. Fox News, CNN and MSNBC must go.
How about MSNBC investigating the crimminal actions of Eric Holder and Barack Obama over the fast and furious operation and the murders of two American agents. To say liberals as a whole are dishonest is an understatement.
Paranoid much Barb? Unfortunately, your homeland, Canada, doesn't have our First Amendment and that is reflected in your totalitarian, leftist mindset. What comes around goes around and your rights as a wannabe, brainwashed Soros operative are likewise endangered by your myopic intolerance to views other than your own
Do you actually have any evidence of Obama doing anything like personally texting the high up executives of the largest national news organization, leaving messages with lol (which he thought meant "lots of love")?
You are right!
What is being uncovered in UK is tip of iceberg.
It is worse in the US.
For Bill Clinton's intervention in Yugoslavia and inventing Bosnia, his native University of Arkansas got $100 million Saudi funding.
This one case. There will be more cases of just Clinton and many other politicians in those days.
yet no one seems to mind when obama does the same thing with the press here.
rupert murrdoch and fox news, the most corrupt, most biased most untrue news in the world and yet they still claim its fair and unbiased? someone should sue them for slander
You may not be a troll but you are a clown.
@Barbara Adams Jackson, Thank you I think you just answered a question for me. I feel I now have a connection I've been looking for. All the news is controlled by 7-8 news co. all around the world. anything we hear is controlled by them. I knew the Republincans had a connection somewhere to control NBC somehow. They are owned by one of these companies.
@ 6mutts....And under your logic the Dims control Fox News I suppose??? Did you not have your morning jolt of MSNBC yet??
Does this surprise anyone?
Does it suprise you that NBC and MSNBC have refused to report on the crimminal actions of President Obama and his stooge AG Holder.
how is corporate spin news anyway? tabloid tv presented as actual fact??? how is this not illegal? congress sucks
wow ollie.....we did not know that...you should become a news source.
Right on Ollie! But how do you know that Congress sucks? Have you been playing house with President Clinton and the Democrats?
And why is this type of activity NOT even on the radar here in the US? Oh, of course! When you bribe/purchase a FBI buraucrat/politition HERE, they STAY BOUGHT!
Most key people are sold to Saudis, oil companies, big corporations, bankers, lobbyists and others with lots of monies to through around.
Or else, why one would have Iraqi wars and now all the repeats of them in Syria and Iran?
So radars may not be enough! For this reason, not many are on radar!
Amazing how the good ol' boys can manipulate the news, invade peoples lives, spread lies and propaganda and fully be involved with the false flag attack of the conspiracy to enslave us all back to impoverished squaler for their great one world order... like that pathetic display Congress put on with that Dimon jackass from JPMorgan Chase. I will be intrested to see if any charges or penalties will ever be levied against this power hungry freak Murdoch.
Another British political witch hunt. Let Murdock bow to the wishes of the Elite and he will be back in good graces around the world. Fox hounds are barking up the wrong tree.
When is NBC and MSNBC going to man up and report the crimes of the Obama adminstration. Fast and Furious potentially rivals the coverup of watergate yet the liberal press refuses to report on it in a vain attempt to try to make it go away and protect this crimminal we have in the White House. Well MSNBC this is not going away and you are going to be punished for your ethical lapses of judgement. Going after Rupert Murdoch is ridiculous when we have two dead agents and hundreds of dead Mexican citizens due to the illegal actions by the Democrats to walk hundreds of guns to the drug cartels in Mexico.
al151998,
there are more than two sides to the Fast and Furious story (imagine that, not a black and white issue!). This article from thehill.com shows how this story is not at all about Holder, but about the operations of DOJ starting in 2006. There are accusations on both political sides, but each side is trying to cover up their own actions whiel pointing to the other: FROM
thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/191845-just-the-facts-on-fast-and-furious
Liberal have heros like Pol Pot, Mao and Stalin. Liberals and Leftist are responsible for most of the bloodshed in the world and they cover their atrocities by justifying their bloody crimes and pointing bloody fingers at conservatives. Their mantra: The death of one person by a conservative is a tragedy but the murder of millions by leftists and liberals is just a harmless statistic.
John Snot, I'm sure there's not a sane person in the country that believes your garbage. Get a life.
John Snot. What catastrophic failure of a human brain. I'm sorry for it.
What...the media has an agenda??? Hilarious!!! All media has an agenda from all the alphabet networks to the Junior High news paper.
How did we all allow this strange little Aussie to corrupt all our governments? This little creep had the whole of the Brits in his pocket. I can understand our poodle-dog Blair selling out. He never had a backbone but Cameron, cops, Scotland Yard? Murdoch is pretty close to controlling our US govnt now with Faux News. Faux News is nothing more than a propaganda wing of the GOP. Ailes is the perfect guy to lead Murdochs interests here.
If Obama walked across the Potomac, the Fox headlines would be " President can't swim".
Oh leave the poor ahole alone, once someone buys you you have to stay bought.
He won't even get grilled over-medium.
"has sharpened the perception that Britain has been run for years by an elite that fawned on the News Corp chairman."
No sir! It is more.
What for Tony Blair is paid two million dollars as a consultant to Morgan Stanley?
It is not known or will not be known how much monies Sunni Saudis and co, oil companies, bankers, big corporations and lobbyists pay these people to get their dirty jobs done.
After devastating effects of Iraqi wars on economy, why would US, Britain, French and others jump as Saudis want and impose sanctions on Iranian oil and manipulate oil price higher and higher from $40 to $100s now?
If Gadhafi had funded Sarkozy election campaign, then anything is possible.