Miliband: Cameron trapped Sir Paul

Ed Miliband, Labour leader, challenges David Cameron in the Commons over his decision to hire Andy Coulson and the position in which he put Sir Paul Stephenson the Metropolitan Police commissioner:

"The prime minister was caught in a tragic conflict of loyalty between the standards and integrity that people should expect of him and his staff, and his personal allegiance to Mr Coulson. He made the wrong choice. He chose to stick with Mr Coulson.

"Sir Paul Stephenson was trapped. He was trapped between a home secretary angry at not being told about the hiring of Mr Coulson's deputy, Neil Wallis, and Sir Paul's belief, in his own words, that doing so would have compromised the prime minister—compromised him because of Mr Coulson. Why did Sir Paul think that? Because his own deputy, John Yates, had been told by the Prime Minister's chief of staff that the prime minister should be told nothing.

"This catastrophic error of judgment—hiring Andy Coulson and hanging on to him for too long—directly contributed to the position that Sir Paul found himself in and his decision to resign."