David Cameron faces further embarrassment over his friendship with the former newspaper editor Rebekah Brooks with the disclosure of more text messages between the pair.
By Robert Watts, Deputy Political Editor
11:05PM GMT 03 Nov 2012
In one text the Prime Minister thanked the former ex-News International chief effusively for letting him ride one of her family’s horses. Mr Cameron’s message wrote that the outing was “fast, unpredictable and hard to control but fun.”
The message, along with a second text from Mrs Brooks, was obtained by The Mail on Sunday newspaper.
The message from Mrs Brooks praised the Conservative leader’s conference speech. “I cried twice,” she wrote. “Will love working together.”
Downing Street said the texts were submitted to Lord Leveson’s inquiry into phone hacking, but only a small number of messages have been made public by the peer so far.
These two texts were sent in October 2009, shortly after Mrs Brooks was promoted from editor of The Sun to chief executive of News International. It is thought they were supplied to the inquiry by Mrs Brooks.
Lord Leveson asked Mr Cameron, Mrs Brooks and Andy Coulson, his former communications chief who previously edited the News of the World, to send a large amount of e-mails and text messages to his inquiry. So far only a small proportion of this correspondence has been made public.
David Cameron has been friends with Mrs Brooks’ husband Charlie since the pair studied at Eton College. They also own houses near one another in Oxfordshire.
Labour MP Chris Bryant has repeatedly made great play of the text messages between the Tory leader and Mrs Brooks during Prime Minister’s Question Time in the House of Commons.
Mr Bryant attacked the Prime Minister for failing to make all the text message between the pair public because they were “too salacious and embarrassing for you”.
“When the truth comes out, you won’t be smiling,” the Labour MP chided the Prime Minister last month.
The Labour MP, who was a victim of phone hacking, has claimed he has a “mole” from Downing Street who told Mr Bryant that some of the messages between the pair were “salacious”.
These are not the first text messages between the former newspaper executive and Mr Cameron to be made public. Mrs Brooks sent one message to the Tory leader shortly before a party conference speech that read: “Speech of your life? Yes he Cam.”
In another she wrote: “I am so rooting for you tomorrow and not just as a friend but because professionally we’re definitely in this together.”
Mr Cameron admitted earlier in the year that he had ridden a retired Metropolitan Police horse called Raisa while it was being lent to Mrs Brooks. The horse referred to in the newly-disclosed message appears to be a different horse, as Raisa was 22-years-old when the former newspaper editor borrowed her.
These newly-published messages are almost certain to put the Prime Minister under further pressure to publish all correspondence between himself and Mrs Brooks.
A spokesman for Downing Street said that the Prime Minister has been “happy” to comply with whatever Lord Leveson has asked of him.