It was a commanding performance by the Prime Minister in the hacking debate today that caused the summer recess of Parliament to be postponed. Recently returned from a tour of Africa that was cut short in response to this snowballing crisis, Mr Cameron needed to step forward to face the questions over his government’s handling of the scandal, to supply new leadership and account for its impact so far. Taking the initiative in his opening statement, the Prime Minister was quick to set out ‘cross-party agreement’ on the need for a full inquiry into the relationship between the media, the police and now, politicians too (many will raise their eyebrows over the extreme range of the inquiry). More significantly, Mr Cameron did openly apologise, in ‘hindsight’, for his appointment of Andy Coulson (the former editor of the news of the world who then moved to the heart of Mr Cameron’s PR machinery). So, crucially, it was an apology over how the progress of events has overshadowed his appointment of Mr Coulson and not of Mr Coulson’s conduct whilst in Mr Cameron’s employment.
Quite simply, Mr Miliband replied, this was not good enough. Not only did Mr Cameron ignore several advisors who raised concerns over the employment of Mr Coulson but also, in doing so, he created for himself a conflict of interest as this story had progressed between public standards and the Prime Minister’s allegiance with Mr Coulson. Therefore, Mr Cameron not only made ‘a serious error of judgement’ in employing Mr Coulson but consciously ‘chose to ignore or hide’ from the facts of Mr Coulson responsibility for events within the News of the World. Mr Miliband’s second line of attack was to pressure the Prime Minister on his own relationship with Media big bosses and especially whether he was engaged in discussions with Rebecca Brooks or the Murdochs over News International’s bid to take over BskyB. This did seem to be the question that stuck most as Mr Cameron tacitly confirmed his participation in such discussions but claimed his involvement was on no level ‘inappropriate’. The Prime Minister tried to hit back by stating he was being by far the more transparent of the two main leaders over his meetings with senior executives of News International, listing his meetings back to the election unlike the leader of the opposition.
Really the two main parties share an equally poor record in fashioning themselves to the most powerful media bodies really set in motion by Margaret Thatcher’s courting of Mr Murdoch Snr during the 1980’s and Tony Blair and Gordon Browns’ close relationship with News International throughout their time in office. Beyond the trade-off criticism between the two main parties, this emergency debate was more about which leader would assert final authority over the matter. Mr Miliband’s standing with the public has risen during his quick reaction to the scandal and Mr Cameron has been forced to prove to his backbenchers that he can still rally his government and assert his leadership. As many commentators argue, Mr Cameron is best in an emergency and when he is challenged and here, he did appear far more authoritative and commanding than his opponent.
Still, interestingly, despite the ongoing salience and public fascination and disgust with this story, today a number of MP’s expressed the growing view that this story is now being over-handled and is slowly losing its shock factor. With the Eurozone crisis still looming in Italy and Greece and with economic figures to be published shortly, expected to show unsatisfactory levels of growth in the last quarter, the domination of this story in political sphere may not be outright when Parliament reconvenes after the summer recess.
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