Comment and Stephen Glover

MANY will think it was handsome of the Prime Minister to apologise so freely within hours of the conviction of Andy Coulson for conspiracy to hack phones f or ever having employed him as his director of communications.

Indeed, he took full responsibility for having hired Mr Coulson back i n 2007, though it was his friend and the Tories’ chief strategist, George Osborne, who enthusiastically recommended the appointment of the former editor of the News of the World.

But I’m afraid this is one occasion when an apology, though welcome, is not really enough. The inescapable truth is that Mr Cameron’s original embrace of Mr Coulson, as well as his later championing of him, raise alarming questions about his judgment and good sense that have not gone way.

Fervent

And it is no exaggeration to say that the ill -conceived Leveson Inquiry into the ethics of the Press, and the subsequent clampdown on newspapers, flowed from Mr Cameron’s decision to employ Mr Coulson, as well as his friendship with Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch’s right-hand woman, who was yesterday acquitted on all charges at the Old Bailey.

When Mr Cameron recruited Mr Coulson, the Tory leader was a weak and lonely figure. Tony Blair had only just stood down as Prime Minister, and the Labour Party still enjoyed the fervent support of Mr Murdoch’s stable of newspapers at News International.

Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne believed that in plumping for the ex- editor of the News of the World they had found a man of the people who was able to relate to ordinary voters more naturally than either of them, with their privileged backgrounds, could.

Probably even more to the point, they thought Mr Coulson would provide an entrée into News International, where Rebekah Brooks was a leading light, and would quite soon become its chief executive.

Within a year of Mr Coulson’s appointment, Mr Cameron was hobnobbing with Mr Murdoch on the media mogul’s yacht in the Mediterranean. He had followed an almost identical route to Tony Blair’s more than a decade earlier in trying to secure the tycoon’s affection.

Some will say that the Tory leader was merely recognising the realities of media power.

The trouble was that the price which was paid was the employment of a man who wise heads in Fleet Street and the Conservative Party had urged him to avoid.

The News of the World’s royal correspondent had been convicted for phone hacking in January 2007, and Mr Coulson quickly resigned as editor. Though he deni e d any knowledge of criminal activity, most seasoned observers found it difficult to believe that he had been unaware.

Nonetheless, Mr Cameron went ahead, naively taking Mr Coulson’s false assurances on trust. So fixated was he by the h o pe of Mr Murdoch’ s endorsement that he threw all caution to the wind, and made almost certainly the most foolish decision of his political career.

His desire to ingratiate himself with Mr Murdoch then led him to develop a relationship with Rebekah Brooks that was far closer than was wise. Very friendly texts were exchanged, and parties in Oxfordshire (the so-called Chipping Norton set) shared. Famously, Mr Cameron even rode one of her horses.

We now know that Mrs Brooks was innocent of any crime. All the same, the Tory leader’s social intimacy with this media princess engendered much criticism. Once again he was following the same path as Tony Blair, who, albeit more discreetly, had befriended the same woman.

Mr Cameron could still have saved himself much embarrassment had he decided, on becoming Prime Minister in May 2010, not to take Mr Coulson with him to No. 10. Further allegations had emerged about the extent of phone-hacking at the News of the World, and it seemed ever more likely that the ex-editor had been complicit.

But, stubbornly and arrogantly, Mr Cameron persisted with his flawed protégé. Almost unbelievably, Mr Coulson was spared a proper vetting procedure before taking up his new job on the public payroll.

Further misjudgment followed when, in December 2010, the new Prime Minister dined with Rebekah Brooks, as well as with James Murdoch — Rupert’s son, and head of his British operations — at a Chipping Norton set knees-up.

By this time, Mr Cameron’s more sensible friends were becoming alarmed by his closeness to News International, and his enemies were beginning to rub their hands, believing t hat t he Prime Minister had made a series of mistakes that would be used against him.

Chummy

So the foundations of another miscalculation were laid. In July 2011, The Guardian newspaper alleged that the News of t he World had clandestinely deleted messages on the mobile phone of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler in 2002, thereby giving her parents ‘false hope’ that she had deleted them herself, and was therefore still alive.

In fact, this allegation turned out to be untrue. The News of the World had later listened to Milly Dowler’s mobile phone messages, but i t had not deleted any of them, as Lord Justice Leveson subsequently conceded, and The Guardian admitted. Had t his been known at the ti me, there would have been much less of a furore.

We can’t know for sure what Mr Cameron would have done if he had never appointed Andy Coulson, or been so chummy with Rebekah Brooks. But it is clear that his unwisely close relationship wi t h News International served to drive him in one direction when The Guardian published its partly inaccurate story.

In the hysteria that followed, he announced there would be an inquiry into the ethics of the entire Press. The logic was hardly clear. Why should newspapers which had never hacked anyone’s phone be put in the dock because the News of the World had done so?

Indeed, it can also be argued that Rebekah Brooks’ s exoneration this week on the charges against her suggests that, while phone- hacking clearly took place at the News of the World on an industrial scale, News International as a whole was less mired in wrongdoing than many of its critics have asserted.

Compromised

It’s crucially important that the criminal law exists to be used against any newspaper or its journalists accused of illegality — which is precisely what has happened in the case of Andy Coulson, who was yesterday judged guilty of phone-hacking by a jury. The same j ury has yet to determine whether he is guilty of making corrupt payments to public officials.

Why was there any need for the Leveson Inquiry? Some people wanted to curtail a free Press, but Mr Cameron was surely not one of them. Alas, he f ound himself hopelessly compromised by his misjudged relationships with senior News International executives.

It is not too much to say that the free Press, and the wider interests of democracy, have suffered an injury as a consequence of the Prime Minister’s lack of good sense, and the errors he has made, going back to his appointment of Mr Coulson in 2007.

The pity is that the Leveson Inquiry and its aftermath can’t be undone. On the other hand, the issue of David Cameron’s lack of judgment is a live one. Despite his effusive, and virtually instant, apology yesterday, the question remains as to whether he has really learnt his lesson.