Coulson's Pay Out

It has emerged that Andy Coulson was paid a six figure pay out by News International when he left and this was paid in instalments while he was being paid by the Tories.  Not only this, but he had a company car from them and access to their health care.  It also transpires that he was having his legal fees paid by NI until last year when he left the Tories.

This is all a conflict of interest and apparently may count as an unregistered contribution to the Conservatives.  The sort of information he would have been privvy too raises a huge amount of questions as to whether or not Coulson was passing on information.  How this could not have flagged up is beyond me and probably any other right thinking person.

The Tories claim that they did not know that Coulson was receiving any payments from NI while working for them.  Can they be serious?  Why were no checks done on this?  Coulson caused controversy from the moment he was employed by the Tories.  It is clear there could have been issues from employing someone of his stature.  In fact it should have raised questions a long time ago when ex-editors of The Sun and The Times said they received nothing on resigning.  So why did Coulson?

Cameron has to answer questions on this issue or he will have this reflected very badly onto him.