Morning Report – July 13th

So today is the day that David Cameron will bite the bullet and announce a “full-scale” enquiry into phone hacking. That’s probably not something he thought he’d be doing a week ago, but he has been on the back foot throughout and Ed Miliband has led the agenda, pushing the PM much further than he ever thought he’d go. Far play to Ed and his team. But Cameron appears to have mislead Miliband last night about exactly what he would be doing today. Ed understood that Cameron would be responding to Labour on phone hacking today, and yet now it looks like that’s not the case. Is Cameron a bottler? That’s likely to be the line when the two men clash at PMQs today.

News International have fought back today over recent allegations concerning Gordon Brown. The Sun, who ignored the emerging story yesterday, hit back with “Brown Wrong” this morning. Yet The Times takes a much different tone – their front page says “Crisis talks as Cameron joins revolt against the Murdochs”(£). Perhaps the Murdoch empire doesn’t speak with one voice after all. Elsewhere in The Times, Daniel Finkelstein argues(£) that newspaper endorsements follow the public, rather than vice-versa. That has a ring of truth to it – but it’s the self-promotion of papers that has often argued otherwise.

And crisis you’d be hearing about today if it wasn’t for BSkyB, phone hacking and News International? Southern Cross, which could cost the taxpayer £25 million. And if/when phone hacking settles down, the government still need to deal with it…