NY Times turns spotlight on David Cameron as NI phone-hacking case goes ahead
The charges in the phone-hacking case made top-of-the-page headlines in in the US papers today , with most focusing on the charges against David Coulson and Rebekah Brooks. The New York Times raised the possibility of Prime Minister David Cameron being tarnished in the event of a long-running trial.
Earlier picture of Murdoch and Brooks
Both Coulson and Brooks " have strong personal links to Mr. Cameron — Mr. Coulson through his years at Mr. Cameron’s side, in and out of government, and Ms. Brooks because of the friendship she and her husband, Charlie Brooks, had with Mr. Cameron before the scandal erupted,"said the Times.
Criminal trials that seem certain to run on at least through the next year, attracting wide news coverage, pose a potentially serious hazard to the prime minister, analysts told the NYT.
With a general election due in 2015, the analysts said , Mr. Cameron and the Conservative Party are now potentially vulnerable to any new revelations that might emerge.
The criminal charges — and the possibility of prison terms if prosecutors win convictions — are a sharp turning point in the affair, said the NYT," adding the drama of high-profile trials to a saga that has already thrown the worlds of politics, policing and journalism in Britain into a prolonged fit of self-examination and shaken the foundations of the Murdoch empire."
The prime minister’s judgment in the affair — particularly his recruiting of Mr. Coulson as the Conservative Party’s media chief in 2007. — is already a major dent in Mr. Cameron’s political armour, said the Times.
"He has also faced extensive questioning as to whether his close relations with the Murdoch elite have skewed government policy favorably toward the media mogul."
The Washington Post agreed that the charges may further embarrass Cameron, who hired Coulson as his chief communications adviser and once counted Brooks and her horse training husband Charlie in his circle of friends.