LONDON, (Reuters) – British Prime Minister David Cameron and his finance minister George Osborne will face accusations they bent government policy to support media baron Rupert Murdoch when they appear at a high-profile inquiry into press ethics next week.
The two most senior members of the government will appear in courtroom 73 at the Royal Courts of Justice in what is certain to be another dramatic week for an inquiry that has revealed collusion between politicians and the Murdoch media empire.
Former prime ministers Gordon Brown and John Major will also testify, along with Labour leader Ed Miliband, deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman and Nick Clegg, the head of the Liberal Democrat junior party in the government coalition.
The scandal has damaged Cameron by creating an image of a leader who surrounded himself by a small clique of wealthy members of the media elite promoting their own interests.
Evidence showing some big government decisions being handled via text messages and how one minister hid behind a tree to avoid being seen with Murdoch executives has also proved unedifying.
The former tabloid editor Rebekah Brooks revealed how Cameron signed off text messages to her with an affectionate “LOL”, conjuring the embarrassing image of a prime minister-in-waiting fawning over the Murdoch protegee. “This inquiry has thrown up an image that is worse than incompetence, it’s revealed a shadiness of operation and a sense of desperation in the willingness not just to cuddle up to this major media baron but to hide the footsteps too,” said Stephen Barnett, a communications professor at Westminster University.