No 10 boss attended Scotland Yard dinner with ex-NoW deputy Neil Wallis

Details of all contacts between ministers and News International reveal that Wallis and Ed Llewellyn, the chief of No 10 staff, attended a dinner hosted by Sir Paul Stephenson Ed Llewellyn, David Cameron’s chief of staff, last night found himself in the spotlight over phone hacking for the second time in a week after No 10 announced that he attended a Scotland Yard dinner attended by Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the News of the World. Llewellyn and Andy Coulson, then communications director at No 10, attended a dinner hosted by Sir Paul Stephenson when he was Metropolitan police commissioner on 17 June last year. Wallis, once Coulson’s deputy at the News of the World, had been hired as a media adviser by the Met and was present at the dinner. Earlier this month Wallis was arrested by the Met as part of Operation Weeting, the main investigation into allegations of phone hacking. Downing Street sources played down the significance of the dinner. Last week Llewellyn was forced to release emails to show that, last September, he rebuffed an offer from the outgoing Met assistant commissioner, John Yates, to discuss the phone-hacking scandal. Yates made the offer after an article in the New York Times put new pressure on Coulson. A No 10 source said last night: “Ed was late for the dinner because he was dealing with an urgent party matter that night. He was in and out of the dinner as he took calls. Is it odd for the prime minister’s chief of staff to meet the Met commissioner? No, it is not.” But Labour, which was informed of the dinner in a letter to the frontbencher Kevin Brennan, is likely to ask questions about Llewellyn’s decision to meet the Met commissioner in the company of Wallis at a time when questions were being asked about the links between the Yard and News International. One No 10 source said: “The first Ed remembered of the dinner was when he saw Neil Wallis’s picture on television.” The disclosure of the Yard dinner came as the Cabinet Office released information showing that George Osborne has held 16 meetings with News International executives since the election and Michael Gove has met Rupert Murdoch six times. Ministers’ contacts with News International executives continued until recent weeks after police had arrested senior News of the World journalists. Osborne met Rebekah Brooks on five occasions in the year following the 2010 general election. The chancellor met James Murdoch on four occasions and Rupert Murdoch twice. In total, he attended 16 meetings at which News International executives were present. Gove, a former senior Times journalist, met Rupert Murdoch on three occasions between 19 May and 26 June this year. A dinner on 26 June came just 10 days after Gove met Murdoch for dinner on 16 June. A spokesman for the education secretary said: “Michael worked for the BBC and News International, and his wife works for News International now. He’s known Rupert Murdoch for over a decade. He did not discuss the BSkyB deal with the Murdochs and isn’t at all embarrassed about his meetings, most of which have been about education, which is his job.” Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, met James Murdoch on two occasions in January this year to discuss the News Corp bid to take full control of BSkyB. Hunt was handed control of media takeovers in December after Vince Cable was stripped of his powers in the wake of the disclosure of a recording in which he told undercover journalists that he had “declared war” on Murdoch. The culture department has already published details of the meetings. In the first meeting Hunt told Murdoch that he had a duty to inform him that he had received the Ofcom report on the BSkyB bid. Hunt told Murdoch he had the right to reply. In the second meeting Hunt told Murdoch that he was minded to refer the bid to the Competition Commission, though he would consider any undertakings from News Corp. Osborne’s News International charm offensive, following his appointment as shadow chancellor by Michael Howard in 2005, paid off when the Conservatives came to power as part of the coalition. Osborne, who became particularly close to James Murdoch because they have children of a similar age, first met him after the election at a meeting also attended by Brooks. Murdoch and Brooks had another joint meeting in April this year. Osborne met Rupert Murdoch in May last year, the first of two meetings during the year. They also met for dinner in New York on 17 December last year, four days before Cable was stripped of his responsibility for media takeovers. The chancellor invited Elisabeth Murdoch, the tycoon’s daughter, and James Harding, the editor of the Times who was a few years above Osborne at St Paul’s School, to his 40th birthday party at Dorneywood last month. A Treasury source said that Osborne did not discuss the BSkyB bid with any of the News International executives after making clear shortly after the election that Cable was in charge of media takeovers. A Treasury spokesman said: “Early on in the process George explained this was a matter for Vince Cable alone and he could not get involved. It was not raised at any other discussion.” A source said that Osborne has no recollection of having discussed phone hacking with the executives. Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, told LBC News: “There have been shenanigans going on here, and until we know what actually was said in the meetings, the fact of the meetings doesn’t prove it one way or the other. It just does raise rather a lot of questions about whether politics was being played over commercially sensitive matters like this.” The Yard dinner is likely to raise questions for Stephenson, who played down the significance of Wallis when he appeared before MPs last week after his resignation as commissioner. He told the home affairs select committee: “Mr Wallis was never employed to be my personal assistant or to provide personal advice to me … He had a very part-time, minor role.” Phone hacking Sir Paul Stephenson Rupert Murdoch Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers James Murdoch Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 26, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.