The political fall-out from Britain's long-running phone-hacking scandal laid bare growing tensions within the Conservative-Liberal coalition government of Prime Minister David Cameron Wednesday. In a rare move, the Liberal Democrats, led by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, abstained in a parliamentary vote over the conduct of a Conservative minister in relations with the media empire of Rupert Murdoch.
But despite the abstention of the 57 Liberal Democrat members of parliament (MPs), the government defeated a motion tabled by the opposition Labour Party with 290 to 252 votes. The motion demanded that the conduct of Jeremy Hunt, the Culture and Media Secretary, should be referred to a parliamentary standards committee.
Labour, which has repeatedly demanded Hunt's resignation, Wednesday accused the Conservative minister of misleading parliament over a planned take-over bid by Murdoch for British satellite broadcaster BSkyB last year. The tense parliamentary vote coincided Wednesday with a court appearance by Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of Murdoch's News International group in Britain.
Brooks, 44, has been charged with perverting the course of justice in connection with the scandal. She appeared for a preliminary hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London, together with her husband, Charlie Brooks, who is charged with the same offence.
The charges relate to the removal of vital evidence, including documents and computers, from the offices of News International, just days before Brooks stepped down at the height of the scandal last year. Brooks, a former close confidante of Murdoch - and former editor of two of his main tabloid newspapers - has described the legal proceedings against her as "weak and unjust." Her husband, who is a long-standing friend of Cameron, said he and his wife were being made "scapegoats" in the affair. The timing of Wednesday' developments is less than fortunate for Cameron, who is due to give evidence to a judicial inquiry into the hacking scandal on Thursday.
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