Cameron weakened by phone-hacking scandal

LONDON (AP):

He's looked defensive, he's looked outraged, he's looked scared. But recently, Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron has rarely looked like he's in charge.

Cameron has lost his confident aura as his friendships with figures central to the tabloid hacking scandal hand his government its biggest crisis since he entered No. 10 Downing Street. Questions are mounting about whether the scandal will poison his premiership.

From the moment allegations emerged that News of the World had hacked into the cellphone of missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler, Cameron has been on the defensive. He has repeatedly been forced to answer questions about his ties to Andy Coulson, his former communications director and a one-time News of the World editor who was arrested last week in the scandal.

The paper was under Coulson's stewardship when a royal reporter and private investigator were jailed in 2007 for hacking into the phones of members of the royal family's household. Coulson resigned as editor, though he maintained he knew nothing of the intrusions.

Soon after, Cameron, then opposition leader, hired Coulson as his communications chief and kept him on when he became prime minister in May 2010. Coulson resigned in January after a new wave of allegations emerged about phone hacking at News of the World.

As Coulson was arrested and released on bail last week, Cameron looked at best naive.

"It doesn't show him in a positive light," said Victoria Honeyman, an expert on British politics at the University of Leeds. "It does make his judgement look questionable."

Cameron's friendships with a media elite now implicated in the widening scandal has also fuelled a public backlash, in particular his chumminess with Rebekah Brooks.

Brooks was editor at News of the World at the time 13-year-old Milly's phone was hacked and is now chief executive of News International, the UK newspaper division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

Cameron has been photographed with Brooks at parties, though all of Britain's prime ministers for the past decade have made time for the 43-year-old media executive, one of the most influential women in British journalism.

But while there's a perception that past Labour Party leaders courted Brooks to secure the endorsement of the Murdoch media empire, the relationship between Brooks and Cameron appears tighter.

Still, analysts suggest Cameron can survive.

"Cameron is ultimately not responsible for this scandal," said Honeyman. "He is implicated in it by appearing to be a relatively close friend of Rebekah Brooks, but he is not unique in that."