David Cameron presented himself to British voters as the candidate of change. He certainly hasn't let them down. The Prime Minister can claim personal responsibility for triggering a series of unexpected and convulsive changes to public life in Britain that have left Britons, in the words of one habitually understated government official "gobsmacked and agog." Over just two weeks, the turbulence has toppled Britain's top cop and thrown London's Metropolitan Police Service (widely known as the Met or Scotland Yard) into crisis, shuttered the nation's biggest Sunday newspaper, led to the arrests of some of the most prominent names in journalism, revived the moribund career of Labour opposition leader Ed Miliband, and shaken a global media empire to its foundations. And this is only the beginning as questions mount over the damage to Cameron's own credibility.
It all goes back to a single decision taken by Cameron in 2007: to make Andy Coulson, a former editor of the now defunct tabloid News of the World from 2003 to 2007, his communications supremo. Coulson had resigned from the News of the World after the prosecution of its royal editor Clive Goodman and a private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, retained by the newspaper. The pair had hacked into the phones of the royal princes and their household. Coulson accepted "full responsibility" for what happened on his watch but has denied any knowledge of illegal activities during his editorship or at any time during his Fleet Street career. "The have been rumors about that kind of activity, I suppose, and media commentators have written about it," he told members of the House of Commons Culture Media and Sport Select Committee in 2009. "It has been in the ether of the newspaper world for some time but no, I have never had any involvement in it at all." Cameron deemed such assurances sufficient to give Coulson "a second chance," and upped the stakes on this gamble by bring Coulson with him into 10 Downing Street after scraping into power at the head of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in 2010—this despite the emergence of fresh evidence a year previously that suggested the number of hacking victims might extend into the thousands and well beyond palace walls. Coulson's second chance expired this January when he left his Downing Street post; he was arrested on July 7 by police investigating allegations of voicemail interception and corrupt payments to police.
Coulson and the nine others arrested so far in relation to these two separate police inquiries must be presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty by law. In overriding advice to appoint Coulson, Cameron must be presumed naive or arrogant or unduly focused on schmoozing the tabloid press and especially Coulson's former bosses, Rebekah Brooks and Rupert Murdoch and his son James. If Coulson had not provided such a tempting target, Britain's Guardian newspaper may not have pursued its investigations with such diligence and backbench critics of the Prime Minister probably wouldn't have kept up such insistent pressure to reopen inquiries into the News of the World. Even if they had, and the allegations that the tabloid had commissioned the hacking of messages left for murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler duly surfaced, Cameron could have responded to the shocking development with calm and authority. Instead he has found himself playing catch-up to Miliband, his novice opponent suddenly transformed into a caped crusader against what he calls "a culture of irresponsibility" that underpinned not only #hackgate but also the banking crises and the scandal over MPs' and peers' expenses. In the latest demonstration of Miliband's new-found power, the Labour leader planned to use a speech on July 18 to call for Parliament to delay its summer recess to discuss the hacking affair and its extraordinary repercussions. Before he stood up to speak, Cameron used a press conference during a long-planned visit to South Africa to say he was minded to extend the parliamentary session.
That is likely to mean a rambunctious Commons debate on July 20, which should have been the day MPs packed their speedos and headed for the beaches. But the highest drama may take place 24 hours earlier, in the modern annexe to the Palace of Westminster called Portcullis House. Both Murdochs are preparing to be grilled by the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee on July 19. The parliamentarians had also expecteded to quiz Brooks, who stood down as Chief Executive of News Corporation's U.K. subsidiary News International on July 15, but her arrest two days later raised doubts over her ability to testify. Latest reports from the BBC suggest that she will.
And a separate committee of parliamentarians, the Home Affairs Committee, has called outgoing Scotland Yard Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, who resigned on July 17, to explain his links with Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the News of the World, arrested on July 14. The Commissioner employed Wallis as a freelance public relations adviser and speechwriter; and he accepted free hospitality at Champneys, a health spa that also retained Wallis as a PR. In his resignation statement Stephenson denied any impropriety regarding the his spa sojourn and said:
In 2009 the Met entered into a contractual arrangement with Neil Wallis, terminating in 2010. I played no role in the letting or managment of that contract. I have heard suggestions that we must have suspected the alleged involvement of Mr Wallis in phone hacking. Let me say unequivocally that I did not. I had no knowledge of the extent of this disgraceful practice and the repugnant nature of the selection of victims now emerging; nor of its apparent reach into senior levels. I saw senior figures from News International providing evidence that the misbehavior was confined to a rogue few and not known about at the top.
Beware of resignation statements. Margaret Thatcher's ouster was initiated by the resignation speech of an embittered, long-serving Cabinet Minister, Geoffrey Howe. Stephenson launched a barely veiled broadside against Cameron as he defended his association with Wallis:
Unlike Mr Coulson, Mr Wallis had not resigned from the News of the World or, to the best of my knowledge, been in any way associated with the original phone hacking investigation.
As the plea that a rogue few were responsible for any illegal activity at the News of the World comes under fresh scrutiny, Stephenson and other high-ranking officers will be called upon to explain why they failed to sift through the masses of relevant evidence already in their possession and whether their professional and social contacts with former employees of the newspaper clouded their judgment. Assistant Commissioner John Yates, the head of counter-terrorism at Scotland Yard, who decided against reopening the hacking inquiry in 2009, followed Stephenson's lead and stood down on July 18. Officers are also investigating whether bribes were paid to their own colleagues for information—and they are not alone in this inquiry, with the Serious Fraud Office in Britain and the U.S. Department of Justice both taking a preliminary look at this most serious of allegations. Less than a year from the London Olympics and the huge and complex policing operation that entails, confidence in the police—and within the force—is at rock bottom.
Many of the same questions—about the scope of the hacking and bribery, about who knew it and when they knew it—are likely to be posed to Rupert and James Murdoch by the select committee, providing television at least as compelling as anything their broadcast networks have ever produced. The board of British Sky Broadcasting is reported to be mulling whether to ask James Murdoch to stand down as its chairman, at least "until News International has been stabilized," according to the BBC's well connected Business Editor, Robert Peston.
stakes parliamentary hearing was halted Tuesday afternoon after a man rushed News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch, who was testifying in defense of his company's handling of its tabloid newspaper scandal.
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