UK PM CAMERON GIVES EVIDENCE AT MEDIA STANDARDS INQUIRY

Описание: (14 Jun 2012) In a sworn testimony before a UK media ethics inquiry, Prime Minister David Cameron admitted on Thursday that the press and politicians had got too close in Britain and needed to change their cosy relationship.
"This is you know a sort of cathartic moment where press, politicians, police, all the relationships that haven't been right we have a chance to reset them and that is what we must do."
The prime minister has faced criticism for the way his government handled Murdoch's bid to take full control of British Sky Broadcasting, a lucrative satellite broadcaster in which it already had a 39 percent stake.
In his testimony, Cameron spelled out his media strategy when he became Conservative Party leader, saying he tried to "win back" newspapers that had traditionally backed his party but had been successfully wooed by former Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Labour Party.
"Under my leadership of the Conservative party, steadily Sun readers were coming over to the Conservative party and I felt in talking to a lot of Sun journalists, a lot of them were very keen for their newspaper to change its style because they found they were out of tune with their readers," he said.
"Also in no way does winning the support of this newspaper or that newspaper guarantee you an election victory."
Cameron admitted receiving an extremely supportive text from Rebekah Brooks, former tabloid editor in Rupert Murdoch's News International empire now facing criminal charges, in 2009 just before a major party conference speech.
"Professionally we're definitely in this together," she wrote to Cameron, who was then still in opposition, before going on to urge him to give the best speech of his life.
When senior lawyer Robert Jay QC suggested there may be a perception of a deal, Cameron denied this by saying "I mean we do slightly get into sort of witchcraft trials, how do you possibly prove you are innocent in that basis?"
Cameron also said former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown came up with a conspiracy theory fuelled by his anger at the Sun switching its support.
"I think where it comes from is obviously Gordon Brown was very angry and disappointed that the Sun had deserted him. And, as a result, in my view he has cooked up an entirely specious and unjustified conspiracy theory to try and, I don't know, justify his anger."
Cameron also defended his ill-fated decision to make disgraced tabloid editor Andy Coulson his communications director, even though Coulson had already been tarnished in the phone hacking scandal.
Cameron said he had received assurances that Coulson was not involved in phone hacking - but those proved hollow when Coulson was forced to resign from his senior government post last year after new revelations about widespread wrongdoing at his newspaper.
Coulson has since been charged with perjury.
Coulson had resigned as News of the World editor in 2007 after his paper was found to have hacked into the voicemail messages of top aides to the royal family.
In written statements to the committee, Cameron said he would not have hired Coulson if he had known about the editor's involvement.


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