Book outs PM’S support for Brooks
‘‘Sorry I couldn’t have been as loyal to you as you have been to me, but Ed Miliband had me on the run.’’
British Prime Minister David Cameron texted Rebekah Brooks in the week she resigned as chief executive of News International over the phone-hacking scandal, to tell her to keep her head up.
An updated biography of Cameron discloses that he told Brooks she would get through her difficulties, days before she stood down.
Such contact then came to an ‘‘abrupt halt’’, although the prime minister sent an emissary to apologise for his sudden coldness, explaining that Labour Party leader Ed Miliband had him on the run.
The details, days before Brooks is to give evidence to the Leveson inquiry, provide a new and embarrassing insight into the relationship between Brooks and Cameron.
His office is poring over Brooks’ evidence to the inquiry after Lord Justice Leveson last week allowed ministers and their aides to preview her submission.
Cameron’s circle was already braced for compromising details to emerge from the hearing on Friday, local time.
The book, Cameron: Practically a Conservative by Francis Elliott of The Times and James Hanning of The Independent on Sunday, details how Cameron and Brooks would often ‘‘pop round to one another’s houses’’ in south Oxfordshire. ‘‘The wider public might have liked to know, too, of the text message that Charlie Brooks told friends Cameron sent to Brooks at the beginning of the week in which she resigned, telling her to keep her head up and she’d get through her difficulties,’’ the authors wrote. ‘‘Such contact came to an abrupt halt soon afterwards, with Brooks not wanting to embarrass Cameron and he wanting to be able to say, hand on heart, that they had not been in touch.
‘‘But it was claimed that Cameron did send an emissary to Brooks to mitigate his sudden coldness towards her.
‘‘The gist of the message was: sorry I couldn’t have been as loyal to you as you have been to me, but Ed Miliband had me on the run.’’
The book includes an astonishingly frank assessment by a Cabinet minister of the relationship between governments and News International in general, and Brooks in particular.
‘‘If you are on the same side as her, you have to see her every week. This was how it worked,’’ Oliver Letwin said.
Details from the book emerged as Andy Coulson, Cameron’s former communications chief and the former editor of the News of the World, prepares to give evidence to the inquiry.
The book describes two meetings between Cameron and Brooks not included on the official list of such contacts.
Those close to Cameron are concerned Brooks’ testimony could revive questions about his judgment in getting close to senior executives from News International. Cameron, a near neighbour of Brooks in south Oxfordshire, heart of the so-called Chipping Norton set, has admitted riding a horse loaned to her by the metropolitan police.
Leveson is expected to ask Brooks about her contacts with Cameron and previous prime ministers. She was also close to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.