Cameron needs to move fast to regain the initiative

Westminster is rife this afternoon with rumours that there’ll soon be a high-profile arrest in the phone hacking case. For David Cameron, this issue is going to remain incredibly difficult as long as the focus remains narrowly on News International. But Cameron has one tool he can use to try and broaden out the issue, the inquiries he mentioned yesterday at PMQs.

If Cameron were to move quickly on setting up judge-led public inquiries into the police and into journalistic abuses, he would regain some of the initiative. These inquiries are really the only tool he has, given that the government is hemmed in on the takeover of BSkyB as it is a quasi-judicial issue and on the cases itself he can’t say anything that might risk prejudicing a trial.