Cameron refuses to deny discussing BSkyB bid with News International

Miliband later fired back: "It's not about hindsight. It is not about whether Mr Coulson lied to him. It is about all the information that the prime minister ignored."

(snip)

"The prime minister was caught in a conflict of loyalty … He made the wrong choice. He chose to stick with Mr Coulson," he said.

"Can he now explain why he failed to act on clear information and why those around him built a wall of silence around the prime minister?"

Miliband also accused Cameron of putting Sir Paul Stephenson, the outgoing Met police commissioner who quit on Sunday, in an "impossible position", because Stephenson could not warn Cameron about Neil Wallis. This contributed to Stephenson's decision to resign, he said.

David Cameron's apparent admission that he did discuss Rupert Murdoch's bid for BSkyB with unnamed executives of News International casts the first serious doubt about the conduct of the prime minister and the government over the proposed £8bn takeover that would have led to the creation of most powerful media group in Britain.

Asked seven times about his involvement in the bid – which needed regulatory approval initially from business secretary, Vince Cable, and later the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt – the prime minister cracked, indicating that he may well have had one or more conversations with individuals at Murdoch's News International who he did not get close to naming.

Labour's Dennis Skinner asked if the prime minister had ever discussed the BSkyB bid in any of his meetings with News International. Cameron said he never had any "inappropriate conversation" with News International and had taken himself completely out of any consideration of the BSkyB deal – and noted that Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, had ruled "very clearly" that no ministerial code was broken in relation to the BSkyB merger and meetings with News International executives.

However, as with his answer to an earlier question on the same subject from Ben Bradshaw, the implication was clear. There had been some sort of conversations, most likely with Rebekah Brooks, the former News International chief executive – we shall see if that detail emerges later – perhaps at one of those meetings last Christmas that Brooks and Cameron were desperate to keep concealed until this week.
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David Cameron's hopes of putting a lid on the phone-hacking scandal were floundering on Wednesday after he was forced to concede he had talked to Rupert Murdoch's executives about their bid to take control of BSkyB.

It is the first time he has made the admission, but he insisted the conversations had been "appropriate" because he did not convey any of those discussions to the politician in sole charge of handling the bid, the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt.

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He added: "I have an old-fashioned view about innocent until proven guilty, but if it turns out that I have been lied to (by Andy Coulson), that would be the moment for a profound apology. In that event, I can tell you that I will not fall short."

The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said it was not about hindsight. Cameron had ignored five warnings of Coulson's activities, he said, including a damning article by the New York Times in September 2010 that prompted major changes at the Metropolitan police, but not in Downing Street. Cameron repeatedly tried to avoid admitting he had discussed the BSkyB deal at one or other of the 26 meetings he has held with Murdoch's executives since the election.

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