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Public Confidence in the Media and Police

The Prime Minister was caught in a tragic conflict of loyalty between the standards and integrity that people should expect of him and his staff, and his personal allegiance to Mr Coulson. He made the wrong choice. He chose to stick with Mr Coulson. My second question is: can the Prime Minister now explain why he failed to act on clear information, and why those around him built a wall of silence between the facts and the Prime Minister? The Prime Minister's conflict of interests had real effects. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner resigned on Sunday. The Prime Minister did not talk about the reasons for his resignation, but the House must talk about it. Sir Paul Stephenson was trapped. He was trapped between a Home Secretary angry at not being told about the hiring of Mr Coulson's deputy, Neil Wallis, and Sir Paul's belief, in his own words, that doing so would have compromised the Prime Minister—compromised him because of Mr Coulson. Why did Sir Paul think that? Because his own deputy, John Yates, had been told by the Prime Minister's chief of staff that the Prime Minister should be told nothing. This catastrophic error of judgment—hiring Andy Coulson and hanging on to him for too long—directly contributed to the position that Sir Paul found himself in and his decision to resign. My third question is: does the Prime Minister accept that his conflict of interest put the Metropolitan Police Commissioner in an impossible position? So the three questions are about BSkyB, the warnings about Mr Coulson that were consistently ignored, and the Met Commissioner. These and many other questions will have to be answered by the Prime Minister over the coming months, but there is one other question that matters now. He says that in hindsight he made a mistake by hiring Mr Coulson. He says that if Mr Coulson lied to him, he would apologise. That is not good enough. It is not about hindsight or whether Mr Coulson lied to him; it is about all the information and warnings that he ignored. He was warned, but he preferred to ignore the warnings. So that the country can have the leadership we need, why does he not do more than give a half apology and provide a full apology now for hiring Mr Coulson and bringing him into the heart of Downing street?