LONDON: British Prime Minister David Cameron, defending his
integrity in an emergency debate in parliament on Wednesday, said he
regretted the uproar caused by his hiring of a former newspaper editor
at the heart of a phone-hacking scandal.
According to the media
reports, under pressure from opponents to apologize, he said Andy
Coulson, his former spokesman who once edited Rupert Murdoch’s News of
the World, had denied knowing of phone-hacking by the paper. But should
Coulson turn out to have led, the prime minister said he would then
offer an apology.
Beleaguered but not seen under serious threat
of being dumped by his party after less than 15 months in office,
Cameron defended his actions and those of his staff in dealings with
the police and Murdoch’s News Corp. (NWSA.O) media empire.
But
the 44-year-old Conservative premier said after his toughest two weeks
in power: "You don’t make decisions in hindsight; you make them in the
present. You live and you learn — and believe you me, I have learnt."
Cameron,
who cut short a tour of Africa as parliament delayed its summer recess
to quiz him, said in his opening statement: "I have an old-fashioned
view about innocent until proven guilty. But if it turns out I have
been lied to, that would be a moment for a profound apology. And, in
that event, I can tell you I will not fall short."
Labour’s Ed
Miliband, whose muted first year as opposition leader has been given a
boost by his assault on Cameron over the scandal, calling the hiring of
Coulson a "catastrophic error of judgment." Online
