Miliband says Brooks should ‘consider her position’

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Speaking to the BBC this morning, Ed Miliband said that News International chief Rebekah Wade should consider her position after it was revealed that the News of the World hacked Milly Dowler’s phone while Brooks was the editor. Miliband said:

“Of course she should consider her position, but this goes well beyond one individual. This is about the culture and practices that were obviously going on at that newspaper, the News of the World over a sustained period.”

“It wasn’t a rogue reporter. It wasn’t just one individual. This was a systematic series of things that happened and what I want from executives at News International is people to start taking responsibility for this, people to start saying why that happened.”

“Milly Dowler’s parents were in a tortured state, worried about the fact she had been abducted. She had gone missing. It is just absolutely awful that they were given false hope by this kind of criminal activity that seems to have been going on.”

Miliband is the first party leader to explicitly suggest that Brooks should leave News International over the affair.