No escape for David Cameron as Miliband won't let go

Published on Wednesday 13 July 2011 19:02

DAVID Cameron has denied he was passed information that suggested his former director of communications Andy Coulson had been involved in criminal activity when he was editor of the News of the World.

The claim - which was met with howls of disbelief and derision from the Labour benches in the Commons yesterday - came during Prime Minister's Questions, which for a second week running was dominated by the phone-hacking scandal.

The Prime Minister admitted that information had been passed to his chief of staff Ed Llewellyn from the editor of the Guardian about Mr Coulson, but said this was not given to him. However, he said it had all been published by the newspaper already.

Mr Cameron also repeated claims that he had received assurances on many occasions from Mr Coulson, who was arrested last week in connection with allegations surrounding the News of the World's activities.

But he said that if he was "lied" to then Mr Coulson should be prosecuted.

At a press conference last week the Prime Minister described Mr Coulson as a "friend" - but yesterday he was described as a "tabloid editor".

And Mr Cameron pointed out that Mr Coulson had given assurances - not only to him but also to the police, a parliamentary committee and under oath to a court of law - that he was not involved in criminality at the paper.

"If it turns out he lied, it won't just be that he shouldn't have been in government, it will be that he should be prosecuted," said the Prime Minister.

Mr Cameron also pointed out that doubts have been cast over Labour leader Ed Miliband's own media advisor Tom Baldwin, who was until recently employed by the Times.

Mr Cameron told Mr Miliband: "You can stand there and ask questions about Andy Coulson.

"I can stand here and ask questions about Tom Baldwin.

"You can ask questions about my private office, I can ask questions about Damian McBride."

But he added: "I think the public and the victims of this appalling scandal want us to rise above this and deal with the problems that this country faces."

However, Mr Miliband continued to attack the Prime Minister, claiming he "just doesn't get it".

"You were warned by the Deputy Prime Minister about hiring Andy Coulson," said Mr Miliband. "You were warned by Lord Ashdown about hiring Andy Coulson.

"You have now admitted in the House of Commons today that your chief of staff was given complete evidence, which contradicted Andy Coulson's previous accounts.

"You must now publish the fullest account of all the information that was provided and what you did and why those warnings went unheeded."

He called on Mr Cameron to "apologise for the catastrophic error of judgment" he made.

Mr Cameron said Mr Miliband was the person "not getting it" and hit out at Labour's record of inaction over the scandal.

He said: "What the public want us to do is address this firestorm. They want us to sort out bad practices at the media, they want us to fix corruption in the police, they want a proper public inquiry. And they are entitled to ask: 'When these problems went on so long, for so many years, what was it that happened in the last decade?'"When was the police investigation that didn't work? Where was the public inquiry over the last ten years?

"We've now got a full-on police investigation that will see proper prosecutions and, I hope, proper convictions and we'll have a public inquiry run by a judge to get to the bottom of this issue."