Cameron’s diary looks clean

Downing Street was seething last night about allegations that there had been meetings between David Cameron and Rupert Murdoch that it had not declared. They know that any sense that they are trying to cover up just how close Cameron was to the Murdochs and News International would be extremely damaging in the current circumstances. There is enough pain to come for Cameron from Leveson without being acccussed of a cover up too.

But the revised evidence submitted by News International does support Downing Street’s version of events. The meetings at issue are only described as ‘possible’ and ‘probable’ and — given that Number 10 has constructed what it is calling a ‘post-hoc’ diary of the Prime Minister’s engagements based on what its records show he actually did that day — it seems most likely that these meetings did not actually take place.

In a sign of both how angry the Tories are about this story, Baroness Warsi has called for the parliamentary commissioner for standards to investigate whether Chris Byrant abused confidential evidence when making this allegation in the House.