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Cnn Piers Morgan

As Paul MCartney speaks out, Piers Morgan has no plans to fly to UK for police quiz

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

August 5, 2011 | 5 min read

The hacking controversy carries on but the CNN host , according to his publicist, won't be flying to London to answer questions

CNN host Morgan , who has firmly denied involvement in phone hacking at any level, tweeted on Thursday "It's so heartwarming that everyone in U.K.'s missing me so much they want me to come home. #swoon."

His publicist, Meghan McPartland, said that as far as she knew Morgan - currently also a judge on "America's Got Talent" - was not returning to England to answer questions. A number of MPs want the ex-Mirror editor to make the trip for "friendly questions" after Heather Mills, ex-wife of Beatle Paul McCartney, stepped into the controversy claiming her phone had been hacked (though not by Morgan). She claimed that a senior Mirror Group journalist admitted hacking into voicemail messages left by her former husband Sir Paul.McCartney himself, speaking by satellite link from Cleveland, Ohio, said he would contact police over his ex-wife's claim as soon as he was finished with his summer tour. "I will be talking to them about that. I don't think it's great. I do think it is a horrendous violation of privacy, and I do think it's been going on a long time, and I do think more people than we know knew about it. But I think I should just listen and hear what the facts are before I comment," Miss Mills told BBC’s Newsnight that the journalist had called her in 2001 and quoted “verbatim” messages that the former Beatle had left. She said that she replied: “You’ve obviously hacked my phone and if you do anything with this story I’ll go to the police.” The unnamed journalist — who Newsnight said was not Morgan, then editor of the Mirror — was said to have replied: “OK, OK, yeah we did hear it on your voice messages, I won’t run it.” In 2006 - a few months after the couple began divorce proceedings - Morgan said in an article in the Mail on Sunday , that he had been played a tape of a message McCartney had left on Mills' cell phone after one of their fights. "It was heartbreaking," Morgan wrote. "He sounded lonely, miserable and desperate, and even sang 'We Can Work It Out' into the answerphone." It is how Piers came to hear this message that has led to the suggestions that he return to the UK and explain . The chairman of the Select committee looking into the hacking affair John Whittingdale said there were NO plans to call Morgan before the committee. At the moment it is focused on determining whether previous witnesses -- like News Corp's James Murdoch -- provided misleading answers. But Tory MP Terese Coffey, a committee colleague of Louise Mensch (who apologised to Morgan earlier this week after misquoting from his book) said Mr Morgan should come back to this country to answer questions. "If Mr Morgan wants to come back to the UK and help (police) with their inquiries, and I don't mean being arrested in any way, I'm sure he can add more light," she said. Mr Whittingdale agreed, " I think that is absolutely right. He certainly should.” He also urged the police to investigate if phone hacking was ongoing at other newspapers. Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman said that Morgan "has got to answer" questions about phone hacking from when he was editor of the Daily Mirror, now we've got these allegations from Heather Mills." On the Business Insider website in the US ,Glynnis MacNicol pointed out " Three weeks in there is zero evidence that Morgan knew or did anything. So far the allegations have been almost entirely the results of Morgan's own words used against him. "Secondly, Heather Mills is not exactly the world's most reliable witness, in so far as she is is notoriously press hungry (in his statement yesterday Morgan says Paul McCartney accused her of leaking his phone messages to the press). "Thirdly, I have no idea who Harriet Harman is but if she's anything like MP Louise Mensch (who misquoted Morgan during Murdoch's hearings and then popped up all over TV to talk about it), . . . there is at least a small chance she is calling for Morgan to answer questions because she wants in on some of the spotlight he will inevitably bring with him. "That's not to say Morgan has nothing to worry about -- for one, he has yet to explain how he heard the McCartney voicemail. " But it is to say at some point someone is going to have to produce actual evidence instead of simply inferring what Morgan might have meant when he said something possibly in context with phone-hacking."
Cnn Piers Morgan

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