PM ‘refused to play ball’ on Murdoch

News International executives briefed David Cameron on “what to say and how to say it” before he met Rupert Murdoch, but he “refused to play ball”, the Leveson Inquiry was told yesterday.

The Conservative Party leader’s strategy in the early days was to treat the Murdochs and their staff the same as everyone else, according to Peter Oborne, the Daily Telegraph’s chief political commentator.

He recounted being told by a News International executive that Mr Cameron had been briefed on what he should say and do to please Mr Murdoch ahead of the pair’s infamously frosty first meeting.

The unnamed employee was staggered when Mr Cameron “wouldn’t play ball”, Mr Oborne said, adding: “I thought good on him.”

Mr Oborne also claimed Fleet Street operated a Mafia-style code of silence in the face of strong evidence of phone hacking. The press had “looked the other way” repeatedly on major stories involving itself and the government of the day

“In the aftermath of Iraq and Afghanistan, many British newspapers remained silent on the issue of complicity in torture, British complicity in torture,” he told the inquiry.