Britain’s coalition government was hit by fresh evidence of internal tensions yesterday from a newspaper sting that has caused a row over a minister’s unguarded remarks ab-out Rupert Murdoch.
In fresh remarks revealed by The Daily Telegraph, Liberal Democrats serving in the Conservative-led government questioned Prime Minister David Cameron’s sincerity and said he could not be trusted.
The minister for care services, Paul Burstow, was quoted as saying: “I don’t want you to trust David Cameron”, while local government minister Andrew Stunell said he did not know where Mr Cameron stood on the “sincerity monitor”.
David Heath, deputy leader of the House of Commons, said Finance Minister George Osborne “has a capacity to get up one’s nose” and compared his own position to late South African politician Helen Suzman, who fought apartheid from the inside.
They were secretly recorded by reporters posing as constituents who first caught out Business Secretary Vince Cable, a senior Liberal Democrat.
Mr Cable told the two female journalists that he had “declared war” on Mr Murdoch over a bid by the media magnate’s News Corporation to take full control of pay TV company BSkyB.
The remarks emerged as British regulators mull the deal, and forced Mr Cameron to remove Mr Cable from any role in reviewing the bid. The Prime Minister also stripped him of powers over media, telecom and broadcasting firms.
In the same sting, Mr Cable was caught threatening to “bring the government down” if the centre-left Lib Dems were forced to compromise too much with the centre-right Tories.
Mr Cable, a former chief economist for oil giant Shell, yesterday said he was “quite angry” at the journalists’ tactics and complained they had done “great damage” to the relationship between lawmakers and their constituents.
“Thousands and thousands of constituents have been to see me, often on very difficult and highly confidential issues which have been respected by me and by them.
“Then somebody who isn’t a constituent falsifies their name and address and comes in with a hidden microphone – it completely undermines the whole basis on which you operate as a local MP.
“All my colleagues, of all parties, feel very strongly that some great damage has been done by this,” he told his local newspaper.
Mr Cable is one of the Lib Dems’ few big names but has also been viewed as one of the coalition’s unhappiest members because he resents the concessions his party has been asked to make.
Conservatives, meanwhile, are furious that Mr Cable has been given preferential treatment because of his key role in holding together the coalition of two parties who are not natural political partners.
They point out that when a senior Tory spoke out of line a few weeks ago, Mr Cameron immediately sacked him.
But Oliver Letwin, the Conservative in charge of formulating government policy, insisted that “deep bonds of trust” had developed in the seven months since the two parties were bound together in an unlikely coalition.