DAVID Cameron is facing fresh embarrassment over playful text message exchanges with Rebekah Brooks as calls for full disclosure intensify, with claims 150 exchanges have not been seen by Lord Justice Leveson.
With the judge's report due to be published this month, two more messages from 2009 between the Prime Minister and the former tabloid editor and News International chief executive have been revealed.
In one, Brooks, facing trial over the phone-hacking scandal, texted Mr Cameron following his 2009 party conference address . She wrote: "Brilliant speech. I cried twice. Will love 'working together'." In another text, the PM, referring to Brooks's racehorse trainer husband Charlie, wrote: "The horse CB put me on. Fast, unpredictable and hard to control but fun. DC."
The exchanges are supposedly part of a cache handed to the Leveson media standards inquiry. Very few have so far been made public, sparking accusations they are being covered up. Brooks told the Leveson Inquiry Mr Cameron signed some of his messages to her "LOL", mistakenly thinking it meant "lots of love" rather than "laugh out loud".
She said that at the height of the phone-hacking scandal in 2010 he sent a message through an intermediary urging her to "keep your head up" and expressed his regret he could not be more loyal in public. Lord Justice Leveson is believed to have received a large amount of correspondence from the Prime Minister, Brooks and former Downing Street communications chief Andy Coulson.
Labour frontbencher Chris Bryant has called for all the material to be published, suggesting some was being withheld because it was "too salacious and embarrassing".
Yesterday, he said: "I'm told there's a stash of about 130, 150 texts and emails which have not gone to Leveson, which have not been shown to anyone, have been reviewed by an expensive lawyer. It's about time that we all saw it."
A Downing Street spokesman said: "The Prime Minister has always been happy to comply with Lord Justice Leveson."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article