David Cameron To Come Home Early From Africa Trip

David Cameron To Come Home Early From Africa Trip

David Cameron is to fly home from his trip to Africa early, in the wake of criticism from the Labour leader Ed Miliband.

He was originally due back on Wednesday morning, and will now return to the UK on Tuesday evening.

Miliband earlier pointed to a "sharp contrast" between the actions of David Cameron and those of Sir Paul Stephenson, who has resigned over links to a former News of the World executive.

When the Conservative mayor of London Boris Johnson was later pressed on the appointment of Coulson, Johnson said it was a "matter for government", not him.

Speaking at KPMG on Tuesday Miliband claimed the prime minister had made a "catastrophic error of judgement" on the hiring of former News of The World editor Andy Coulson as his chief media adviser.

He added that Cameron has been unable to show the "leadership the country needs", and has more questions to answer over the phone hacking scandal engulfing News International and News Corporation.

The Labour leader also blamed the phone hacking scandal on a culture of irresponsibility and concentration of power, which could have implications for the banking and energy sectors as well as the media landscape.

Speaking on Tuesday he said it was not healthy that News Corporation controlled nearly 40 per cent of the newspaper market before the closure of News of The World.

"It also owns 39% of BskyB, giving it huge power, including effective control of two thirds of the pay TV market through the Sky platform, alongside Sky News. Politicians should have confronted this earlier.

"And, let's be honest, the reason we did not was, in part, because News Corporation was so powerful. I do not think that is healthy.

He said Labour would be submitting proposals to the judicial inquiry on phone hacking for new cross media ownership laws.

But he added that other powerful industry groups should also be challenged.

"Down the ages, it is large concentrations of power that lead to abuses of power and neglect of responsibility. In the banks, they were too big to fail.

"Six energy companies control 99.9 per cent of the consumer market. This cannot be right and we must take action to open

up the market over the coming months," he said.

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