Nearly half of all voters question the prime minister's judgement following the phone-hacking scandal, a new survey reveals.
The poll comes amid new questions for David Cameron, after reports show the extent of the Cabinet ministers' meetings with News International figures.

Government information released yesterday showed chancellor George Osborne had met News International representatives 16 times since the general election. Eyebrows were also raised at education secretary Michael Gove, who had 21 meetings.

“It reveals a lot about Michael Gove’s priorities that he has found time to meet with News Corps executives 21 times since he became education secretary - including meeting Rupert Murdoch on seven separate occasions - but in his first seven months in the job he didn’t manage to visit a single sixth form college, further education college or special school," said shadow education secretary Andy Burnham.

As the documents were released Downing Street again found itself defending Ed Llewellyn, Mr Cameron's chief of staff, after it emerged that he had dinner with Neil Wallis and then Met commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson. Mr Wallis' network of contacts in the media, Scotland Yard and Downing Street has proved problematic for several senior figures over the last few weeks.

A ComRes poll for the Independent found that all party leaders had been hit by the phone-hacking scandal - even Ed Miliband, who was widely considered to have dealt with it well - but that Mr Cameron was considerably the most damaged.

Asked whether 'David Cameron's actions over the phone hacking scandal make me question whether he has the right judgment and skills to be prime minister', 47% agreed and 44% did not.

In a finding which will cause consternation in Downing Street, 31% of people who voted for Mr Cameron also agreed with the statement.

 

Ping! It's a missive from solicitors Harbottle & Lewis. Is this a new statement about its role in the now infamous 2007 investigation into internal emails at the News of the World conducted on behalf of News International? Er, nope. Harbottle wants to share the important news that "the firm has a dedicated theatre group with over 50 years of experience in the theatre industry" and has acted for the National Theatre and Sadler's Wells. The press release continues: "The firm has been at the centre of many of the media and entertainment industries' largest and most high-profile transactions and cases, and its lawyers are recognised for some of the most pioneering work in the exploitation of digital media and content." Just don't mention those emails..

Matt "vampire squid" Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine's view on the Journal: "Seeing a Rupert Murdoch publication whine about the meanness and editorial excess of other media companies is almost indescribably hilarious. For sheer preposterousness, I struggle even to come up with credible rivals to this editorial passage. In the ballpark, maybe, is [serial killer] John Wayne Gacy's famed post-arrest complaint: 'I see myself more as victim than perpetrator. I was cheated out of my childhood.'"

Prince Andrew will give up his title as Britain's "special representative" but will continue to travel the world in a less formal role to promote UK trade, the Daily Mail reported.
He is said to have already consulted with the Queen and spoken to Downing Street about the move which comes after intense controversy over his links to an American sex offender.
It is expected that he will make an announcement about his future in the next few days.
He is reported to be preparing to take up a new role promoting the Government's drive to boost the number of apprenticeships for young people.
The Duke came under intense pressure to resign as trade envoy earlier this year over his friendship with Jeffery Epstein, the American billionaire who pleaded guilty to solicitation of prostitution and a single charge of procuring minors for prostitution in 2008. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

 

THE damage to the reputation of News International from the phone-hacking scandal was underlined further yesterday as organisers of the London Olympics withdrew a deal giving them exclusive access to athletes.
Team 2012, a Visa-backed project supporting potential British Olympians, had signed up News International as its official partner, in a deal which would have allowed the firm's titles to bill themselves as "the official newspaper of Team 2012".

But the project declared in a statement yesterday that "as a result of the closure of News of the World the contract can no longer be fulfilled as originally envisaged".

The development is a further blow to News International which had invested heavily in a project with social media website Facebook and plans for content generated ahead of next week's one-year-to-go celebrations. Team 2012 said they were now "exploring media partnerships across a range of channels".

The blow came as Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced he had asked Ofcom to explore whether News International should be forced to give up its holding in BSkyB.

Mr Clegg said Ofcom should move "quickly" to consider whether Rupert Murdoch's News International was "fit and proper" to help control a British broadcaster in the light of the phone-hacking scandal. It represents a huge turn around in fortunes for a company which only three weeks ago had seemed certain to win its battle to win complete control of BSkyB, but which now has major question marks hanging over its future.

It comes as Mr Murdoch returned to New York yesterday, facing pressure from shareholders, and the likelihood of legal action in the US as well.

An investigation into whether News Corp employees hacked phones of 9/11 victims in the US is already under way by the FBI, while bribes the company allegedly paid to British police could also violate the corrupt practices act in the US.

One legal expert, Washington lawyer James Tillen, said: "Any payments to police that were inaccurately recorded or payments to phone hackers paid from some kind of slush fund, would make it easier for the US authorities to go after News Corp."

Yesterday, there were fresh allegations that a News Corp subsidiary hacked into the computers of a New Jersey rival to steal business secrets in 2004. News America Marketing came to a $29 million settlement with marketing firm Floorgraphics. Democrat senator Frank Lautenberg yesterday wrote to FBI chief Robert Mueller and US attorney-general Eric Holder urging them to examine the case as part of their investigations into the conglomerate.

 

Scotland Yard has beefed up its team tackling phone hacking as its workload continues to grow.

Officers working on the inquiry have been been boosted from 45 to 60 after a "significant increase in the workload", Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers said.

She said the move came as officers experienced a "surge of inquiries and requests for assistance from the public and solicitors" as the scandal snowballed over the last fortnight.

High Court judge has ordered police to disclose information relating to alleged hacking of the voicemail messages of Hugh Grant and Jemima Khan.

Mr Justice Vos said the Metropolitan Police should disclose details of alleged hacking by a private investigator for the News of the World.

Mr Grant and Ms Khan were not in court and the Met did not oppose the order.

Hugh Grant was among figures who led calls for a public inquiry into phone hacking by the News of the World.

During the 20-minute hearing at the High Court in London on Wednesday lawyers representing Mr Grant and Ms Khan said police had indicated their telephone messages may have been intercepted.


There is certainly interest (in my private life) but it's back to the old cliche of what is interesting to the public, and what is in the public interest”

Hugh Grant
Can celebrities expect privacy?
Mr Grant's belief he was a victim of phone hacking led him to carry out an undercover investigation on the issue for the New Statesman magazine in April.

Ms Khan recently told The Independent she had become a member of the "hacked club".

She told the paper: "I do remember noticing that voicemail messages, which I had not yet listened to, were going directly to old or saved messages.

"I assumed, as any techno-moron would, that I had simply messed up the phone settings."

After it emerged earlier this month that among the phones hacked was that of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, Mr Grant joined the Hacked Off campaign calling for a public inquiry.

The government later announced a judge-led inquiry to look at phone hacking and the wider issue of media regulation.

Hacking on 'industrial scale'
Mr Grant recently told the BBC how he secretly recorded a conversation with former News of the World journalist Paul McMullen after he "boasted" about phone hacking "on an industrial scale".

Asked if there was legitimate public interest in his private life, Mr Grant said: "There is certainly interest but it's back to the old cliche of what is interesting to the public and what is in the public interest.

"A lot of it is of interest to the public but none of it is in the public interest."

Mr Grant is one of thousands of people - from footballers, politicians and actors to "ordinary people" - whose phones are believed to have been hacked by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.

Several high-profile figures, including former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott, actor Jude Law, television presenter Ulrika Jonsson and retired footballer Paul Gascoigne, have launched damages claims against News Group Newspapers, publishers of News of the World.

A civil trial at the High Court is due in January.

Mr Justice Vos is due to hear evidence about several "lead claimants" at the trial and assess damages.

Several people, including actress Sienna Miller and football pundit Andy Gray, have already settled out of court.

 

Senior royal staff were "gobsmacked" over the appointment of the former News Of The World (NOTW) editor Andy Coulson by David Cameron, Sky sources have said.


Royal correspondent Paul Harrison said there were "grave concerns" within the household when Mr Coulson was taken on by Mr Cameron in 2007 when he was in opposition.
Mr Coulson was then made director of communications when Mr Cameron became Prime Minister in 2010.
The journalist resigned as editor of the NOTW in 2007 after royal reporter Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed for hacking the phones of royal aides.
Mr Coulson has since been arrested and questioned by detectives on the new hacking inquiry launched earlier this year.
Harrison said it was not known if the concern went up to members of the royal family or not.
Downing Street has said the claim is a "scurrilous allegation" and "complete rubbish".

Buckingham Palace said: "On no occasion did anyone from Buckingham Palace raise concerns with Downing Street."
During a debate on the phone-hacking scandal in the Commons, the PM has admitted that "with hindsight" he would never have given a job to Mr Coulson and said he is "extremely sorry" about the furore it has caused.
On Tuesday Rupert and James Murdoch were quizzed by a committee of MPs about allegations of hacking at the NOTW.
Rupert Murdoch apologised and said it was the "most humble day" of his career.
Mr Cameron has been facing demands to apologise for appointing Mr Coulson, who resigned in January.
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt told Sky News the PM had been entitled to rely on assurances given by Mr Coulson that he had no knowledge of the practice by journalists at the paper.

James and Rupert Murdoch spoke for over three hours
"What the Prime Minister didn't have was a crystal ball that enabled him to predict all the appalling wrongdoing at the News Of The World that we now know about," he said.
"He had assurances that Andy Coulson had not just made to him but to Parliament and to the police that he knew nothing about phone hacking.
"What people will judge the Prime Minister for is 'does he show the leadership to sort out this crisis?'.
"I think what we have seen in the last couple of weeks is that he is grappling with the problem previous prime ministers have ducked for very many years."

Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, on Tuesday denied responsibility for alleged phone hacking at his News of the World newspaper but admitted to a committee of MPs that the heads of his British business had failed to inform him of key developments as the scandal unfolded.
Mr Murdoch, flanked by his son James, described his appearance before the media select committee as “the most humble day of my life”.
More


He said that he was “clearly” misled by his staff after originally claiming that phone hacking was the work of a small number of rogue employees, following the first police investigation into the practice in 2007.
Questioned by Tom Watson, the Labour MP, Mr Murdoch said that he was not informed about allegations that News of the World employees made payments to police, given that News International made up only a small part of his News Corp empire. “The News of the World perhaps I lost sight of because it was so small in the general frame of our company,” he said.
“This is not as an excuse. Maybe it’s an explanation of my laxity… I employ 53,000 people around the world.”
Rupert Murdoch often struggled to hear questions and attempted to defer several answers to his son, but was prevented from doing so by questioners. Shares in News Corp rose around 4 per cent in New York at the time of the hearing, amid reports that some shareholders were pushing for Chase Carey, its chief operating officer, to replace Mr Murdoch as chief executive.
Mr Murdoch said he was informed of the conviction of Clive Goodman, the News of the World’s royal correspondent, but was not made aware of further allegations of misconduct by senior reporters, involving blackmail, and lawyers’ apparent mishandling of e-mails.
He said he was also unaware of settlement payments in the hundreds of thousands of pounds made to some victims of phone hacking, which were approved by his son James.
Further, he claimed he was unaware that a previous committee of MPs had found News International executives guilty of “collective amnesia”.
“It is revealing in itself what he doesn’t know and what executives chose to tell him,” Mr Watson said of the News Corp chief.
The phone hacking scandal has gripped the British public public, many of whom spent the afternoon grouped around televisions in pubs, and generated dozens of related messages on Twitter every second, according to Tweetminster.
James Murdoch, deputy chief operating officer at News Corp and head of its international business, opened proceedings by apologising to the victims of phone hacking, although he was denied the opportunity to read out a prepared statement. “It’s a matter of great regret of mine and my father’s and everyone at News Corp.”
Quizzed over out of court settlements, he said he took the decision to sanction the payments over phone hacking in 2007 – including one of £700,000 to a hacking victim – confident that the issue had been dealt with following the arrest and prosecution of Clive Goodman, royal reporter at the News of the World, and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator.

Mr Yates, who quit his job as assistant commissioner yesterday, said he saw the tabloid's former deputy editor "two or three times a year" as a friend and had been to his house to pick him up for a football match.

His comments came as departing Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said he regretted the Wallis appointment - and blamed Mr Yates for telling him two years ago that there was nothing new in the phone hacking allegations.

Mr Yates was also blamed by Scotland Yard PR chief Dick Fedorcio for giving the go-ahead for the appointment of Mr Wallis, who is now under arrest for alleged phone hacking, to a £1,000-a-day press office job with the Met.

Mr Yates hit back by saying that Mr Fedorcio was "over-egging the pudding" and should have carried out "due diligence" on Mr Wallis himself before taking him on.

The clashes came during a dramatic hearing of the Commons home affairs select committee on the scandal attended by Sir Paul, Mr Fedorcio and Mr Yates.

Asked about his links with Mr Wallis, Mr Yates replied: "I would see him two or three times a year - he's a friend. Don't get the impression we are bosom buddies going round to each other's houses. I do not go round his house on a regular basis. I think I have been round there once to pick him up for a football match."

On the decision to hire Mr Wallis, Mr Yates said that he had a phone conversation with the former deputy editor before his employment with the Met and "sought absolute assurance" that there was nothing "still being chased" by journalists over the phone hacking inquiries that could embarrass the Metropolitan Police.

He added: "We should not forget that Neil Wallis is still an innocent man."

In further evidence, Mr Yates said that the Met had offered to explain to David Cameron about the scope of the phone hacking investigation, but said that Ed Llewellyn, the Prime Minister's chief of staff, had "for whatever reason" chose not to inform Mr Cameron.

When asked why he didn't reopen the investigation into hacking in 2009, following new allegations in the Guardian, Mr Yates admitted that he had been wrong.

He said: "Why would we have done, with what we knew at the time?" He then said "we know now what we know now" and added: "God, I wish I'd done something different."

Sir Paul insisted he had had no idea that Mr Wallis might be linked to the phone hacking scandal.

In a defiant appearance before the committee two days after his resignation, Sir Paul said: "I am quite happy to say, knowing what we know now, that I regret that contract [with Wallis] because it's embarrassing. I was consulted in the procurement process but I didn't hire him. I knew nothing to his detriment."

Sir Paul quit on Sunday after it was revealed that he enjoyed a free five-week stay at Champney's health spa worth £12,000. Mr Wallis was the PR for the spa, but Sir Paul said today that he had not known of the link. He had been in pain and in a wheelchair at the time following an operation to remove a pre-cancerous tumour from his leg.

Sir Paul said he had told Mr Fedorcio to take on "additional support" because his deputy was off sick, but did not put forward Mr Wallis's name. "When Neil Wallis's name came up I would have no concerns about that," he added.

A Downing Street official told Scotland Yard to keep the Prime Minister in the dark about Mr Wallis, Sir Paul said. The disclosure caused surprise because Mr Cameron has since made clear he should have been told earlier that Mr Wallis had been paid £24,000 by the Met for PR advice.

Responding to suggestions that he did not trust the Prime Minister, Sir Paul said he had tried to avoid "compromising" him by revealing operational details about an imminent arrest.

He went on: "I think there is something very relevant here: My understanding is that it was exactly the advice of a senior official in No 10, so we don't compromise the Prime Minister.

"A senior official in No 10 guided us that actually we should not compromise the Prime Minister. And it seems to me to be entirely sensible."

Committee chairman Keith Vaz mocked the appointments of Mr Wallis and former Downing Street spin doctor Andy Coulson, saying they looked like "fashion accessories" and sounded incredulous that Sir Paul never wondered if Mr Wallis had been involved in phone hacking.

"You are a police officer- surely you would have had suspicions?" he said. Committee member Nicola Blackwood suggested Met officers were "blinded by friendship" with Mr Wallis.

The former Met boss also said he regretted the failures of the original investigation and appeared to blame Mr Yates for his decision not to re-open the probe.

Asked about visits to The Guardian in December 2009 to tell them that their stories about phone hacking were "exaggerated and inaccurate", Sir Paul said: "Mr Yates gave me assurances that there was nothing new coming ... I think I had a right to rely on those assurances."

He appeared before MPs as it emerged that Boris Johnson is attempting to rush through the appointment of a new Met commissioner. The Mayor has instructed key staff to look into ways to "speed up" the appointment of a replacement to "restore public confidence in the Met".

Mr Johnson has asked his chief of staff Sir Edward Lister to explore how quickly he can start conducting interviews. Sources said he hoped he may even have a new commissioner in place by the end of next month.