THE POSITION of British prime minister David Cameron’s top media adviser is under increasing pressure following a decision yesterday by the government not to block an investigation into allegations of widespread telephone tapping by British newspapers.
The adviser, Andy Coulson, who resigned in 2007 as editor of the News of the Worldafter one of his reporters was jailed for telephone tapping, has faced fresh allegations in the last week that he approved of the widespread use of such tactics during his time in charge of the powerful tabloid.
The Standards and Privileges Committee at the House of Commons is to meet early next week to decide whether it will launch a full public inquiry into the affair, but there is little doubt that it will do so given the strength of feeling expressed by MPs from all parties present at a debate on the matter yesterday, who voted unanimously for an investigation to take place.
Mr Coulson is expected to be called to testify, along with some of the newspaper's former reporters who made allegations in recent days. There were demands the committee should also call Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of the Rupert Murdoch-controlled News International and also former editor of the News of the World, and Mr Murdoch himself.
Criticising the British media, Labour MP Tom Watson said: “The most powerful people in the land – prime ministers, ministers and MPs of every party – are guilty in their own way of perpetuating a media culture that allows the characters of the decent to be traduced out of casual malice, for money, for spite, for sport, for any reason they like.”
Supporting the setting up of an inquiry, Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes, who gave evidence to the Metropolitan Police during the investigation which led to the jailing of News of the Worldroyal correspondent Clive Goodman and a private detective, Glenn Mulcaire, said other MPs had refused to testify because they were "afraid" of the consequences of crossing News International.
Former Labour MP Chris Bryant, who now chairs the Standards and Privileges Committee and whose name and number appeared on a list kept by Mr Mulcaire, said the hacking of MPs’ telephones by media organisations was “a contempt of parliament, a severe breach of parliamentary privilege”, which threatened the rights that MPs have had for 300 years to speak freely and which could compromise these rights.
Another former News of the Worldjournalist, Paul McMullan, who now runs a pub in Dover, yesterday became its latest ex-employee to come forward to say telephone hacking was rife at the News of the Worldduring Mr Coulson's editorship, though he said that Mr Coulson had tried to "restrain" some of the worst conduct.
Mr McMullan, a former features executive and a member of the newspaper’s investigations team, says he personally hired private detectives to carry out several hundred interceptions, or voice-mail breaches, in a statement that could leave him open to criminal prosecution later.
The practice was rife at the newspaper, he said, and no secret to anyone working there. It emerged last night that Mr McMullan left the newspaper in 2001, however – two years before Mr Coulson became editor.