16 July 2011updated 05 Oct 2023 8:14am

The cosy relationship between the PM and NI

Half of Cameron's first dozen media contacts after the election were with News International.

As promised, the Cabinet Office has released a list of all editors, proprietors and journalists to meet David Cameron since May 2010. (It can be found here as a PDF.)

The list makes for interesting reading. Rupert Murdoch was the first press baron Cameron met after the election, followed by the Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre. That month, the Prime Minister also hosted Lord (Terry) Burns of Channel 4 and Deborah Turness of ITV News at his country retreat, Chequers.

The first four meetings of the next month, June, are all with News International journalists – first, Rebekah Brooks comes to Chequers, then Cameron has a “general discussion” with Sun editor Dominic Mohan. He later attends the News International summer party, and gives an interview to Times editor James Harding.

There’s a brief respite with the next entry, a general discussion with Evening Standard editor Geordie Greig, before Cameron attends the Times CEO summit in London. (The text of his speech can be found here.)

He then rounds off June with a visit to the FT mid-summer party, and begins July with the Spectator summer party.

There are two key points to take away from the list. The first is that of the 12 media contacts Cameron had in the first two months of his premiership, six of them were with News International.

The second interesting piece of information is who was invited to Chequers. This being the PM’s country home, it must be assumed that an invitation there means that Cameron is closer to you than if you had simply been granted a “general discussion”.

The Chequers invitees are:

May 2010 Lord Burns, Channel 4
May 2010 Deborah Turness, ITV News
July 2010 Lord Rothermere, Daily Mail owner
August 2010 Rebekah Brooks, News International
November 2010 James Murdoch, News International

Although there are no details of the infamous “Christmas dinner” of Rebekah Brooks, James Murdoch and Cameron, it is worth noting that two separate “social” meetings are listed for December 2010. One is with Murdoch and Brooks; the other with Brooks alone.

Cameron’s March 2011 hosting of Andy Coulson at Chequers – which, according to the Guardian, he paid for from his own pocket – is not included in the list as Coulson was not a working journalist at the time.

One final point: as BBC business journalist Joe Lynam points out, the list does not include a single BBC journalist or executive.