A TV grab shows Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron as he makes a statement on phone hacking inside the House of Commons in London on Wednesday. — PTI

London, July 20
Prime Minister David Cameron, defending his integrity to parliament in emergency session today, said he regretted hiring a journalist at the heart of the scandal that had rocked Britain's press, police and politicians.

But in two stormy hours of questioning, he seemed to rally his Conservative Party behind him and stopped short of bowing to demands that he apologised outright for what the Labour leader called a "catastrophic error of judgment" in hiring as a spokesman a former editor of Rupert Murdoch's News of the World.

Only if Andy Coulson, who has since resigned, should turn out to have lied about not knowing of illegal practices at his newspaper would the Prime Minister offer a "profound apology".

But the 44-year-old premier spoke with apparent feeling about his toughest two weeks in power. "You don't make decisions in hindsight; you make them in the present. You live and you learn - and believe you me, I have learnt," he said.

"It was my decision ... Of course, I regret and I am extremely sorry about the furore it has caused. With 20:20 hindsight ... I would not have offered him the job."

Beleaguered but hardly under serious threat of being ousted by his party allies after less than 15 months in office, Cameron defended his actions and those of his staff in dealings with police chiefs who resigned this week over the affair and with Murdoch's News Corp global media empire.

"He seems to have gained a bit of breathing space over the course of this debate," said Andrew Russell, senior politics lecturer at Manchester University. "He looked more self-assured today than he has been for a little while."

Labour's Ed Miliband, whose muted first year as opposition leader has been fired up by attacking Cameron on the scandal, has stopped short of demanding Cameron's resignation.

But he asked during the debate: "Why doesn't he do more than give a half-apology and provide the full apology now for hiring Coulson and bringing him into the heart of Downing Street?"

Opposition members of parliament questioned the credibility of Cameron's defence that Coulson had assured him when being hired in 2007 that, as the editor of the News of the World, he knew nothing of the hacking of voicemails that had led to the paper's royal correspondent being jailed earlier that year.

Murdoch, 80, who was attacked by a protester with a foam pie during Tuesday's committee hearing, sent a message to his staff that his company was taking steps to ensure that "serious problems never happen again".

"Those who have betrayed our trust must be held accountable under the law," he said in an email sent late on Tuesday. Media Minister Jeremy Hunt said News International needed to explain how malpractice happened without Murdoch or his son James, a top News Corp executive, being told. They shut down the 168-year-old News of the World this month. — Reuters