Coulson & Brooks at Leveson

The past couple of days will have been hotly anticipated in number 10, the former communications director for No.10, Andy Coulson appeared at the Leveson Enquiry on Thursday. Rebekah Brooks, former CEO of News International and good friend of David Cameron appeared yesterday.  Unfortunately they were not able to talk about phone hacking as they are both on police bail after being arrested in relation to the hacking scandal.

Coulson is particularly important as he was hired by David Cameron to be the communications director for him; he was sounded out by George Osborne. He told the enquiry that his hiring was not part of some grand scheme to get Cameron closer to the Murdochs, although I’d be extremely surprised if this never crossed Cameron’s mind. What is important to note is that Coulson had £40,000 of shares in News International, something he should have declared when he took office in the government, yet he never did claiming he was ‘too busy’ and didn’t notice the personal benefit to himself if News International did well, making him totally inappropriate as the government’s communications director. Coulson told the enquiry that even after the hacking scandal was blown wide open by the Guardian David Cameron, nor any other member of the government, questioned him on his knowledge of phone hacking despite the widening public interest in his part.

Rebekah Brooks caused more problems for the government, she told the enquiry that how after she was arrested she received messages of support from No.10, No.11, the Home Office and the Foreign Office. This reveals just how close the Murdoch press got to the very heart of government. She admitted that David Cameron had indirectly contacted her with a message that went along the lines of “I would have been more loyal to you had Ed Miliband not been on my tail”. What was even worse for the government was an email recovered from Brooks’ smart phone from Fred Michel [the PR man for News International] that read:

“Hunt will be making references to phone hacking in his statement on Rubicon this week. He will be repeating the same narrative as the one he gave in Parliament [a] few weeks ago. This is based on his belief that the police is pursuing things thoroughly and phone hacking has nothing to do with the media plurality issues. It’s extremely helpful… He [Hunt] wants to prevent a public inquiry.”

This is clearly bad for Hunt, Ed Miliband is already calling for his resignation (again). The email seems to suggest that Hunt was asking the Murdochs how he should handle the phone hacking scandal. I do not see Hunt being able to stay on for much longer due to this scandal.