David Cameron admits he was too close to media

Giving evidence to the House of Commons liaison committee, David Cameron said the Leveson Inquiry into phone hacking would provide an opportunity to rethink press regulation and prevent a repeat of what he said were “bad cases of abuse by the media”.

In July it emerged that murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s voicemail messages had been intercepted in the days after she went missing.

At the time David Cameron described the allegations as “truly dreadful”.

The Prime Minister said that the relationship between politicians and the media needs “resetting” as he admitted having spent too much time trying to win the support of newspapers and broadcasters.

Challenged over whether he personally allowed himself to get too close to media proprietors and editors, Mr Cameron replied: “Yes.”

But he stressed that his contacts were not only with Rupert Murdoch’s News International, but with a wide range of media organisations.

The relationship between politicians and media needs resetting and I think there is an opportunity in this Parliament to do that. David Cameron

Official figures released in July showed that Mr Cameron met Mr Murdoch and executives of his companies – which publish The Sun, The Times and the Sunday Times and part-own BSkyB – 26 times in his first 15 months at 10 Downing Street.

Mr Cameron told the committee: “The relationship between politicians and media needs resetting and I think there is an opportunity in this Parliament to do that.

“I think there is a need for better and more appropriate media regulation, partly because of the abuses that have taken place.”

Mr Cameron said relations between politicians and the media had “got too close, in that politicians were spending a lot of time trying to get their message across but issues of regulation were left on the back burner”.

The Prime Minister’s admission comes the on same day that former News of the World executives contradicted evidence given by James Murdoch to MPs.

Former News of the World legal manager Tom Crone said he informed Mr Murdoch about the so-called “for Neville” email which it is claimed proves that knowledge of phone hacking went beyond one rogue reporter.

The Commons CMS Committee will decide later this month whether to recall James Murdoch to give evidence.