UK Phone-Tapping Scandal Set to Reignite

For its part, the British government said it considers the matter closed and will not investigate Mr. Coulson, who was hired as the Conservative Party’s chief spokesman in May 2007 after his resignation from The News of the World. A spokesman at 10 Downing Street said last week that Mr. Coulson “totally and utterly” denied knowing about phone hacking while he served as editor. Alan Duncan, the international development minister, appeared on television on Saturday night on behalf of the government, accusing the Labour Party of acting for purely political reasons.

Speaking of senior Labour leaders who have called for a new investigation, Mr. Duncan said: “The Labour Party — in a concerted campaign through Ed Miliband, Lord Prescott and Alan Johnson — have piled in to attack Andy Coulson about something that happened years ago in order to try to attack the government.”

Meanwhile, The News of the World denied the Times’s allegations and accused it of publishing the magazine article in an effort to discredit a newspaper belonging to a “rival group” — that is, the media empire of Rupert Murdoch. Mr. Murdoch is the chairman of News Corporation, whose many media holdings include The News of the World, The Times of London and The Wall Street Journal.

Five people whose phones were hacked have filed lawsuits this summer against News of the World’s parent company and Mr. Mulcaire. And a growing number of public figures who believe their phone messages may have also been intercepted but who feel the police did not do enough to investigate say they intend to sue The News of the World. Others, including Brian Paddick, a former deputy assistant commissioner with the Metropolitan Police, say they intend to seek a judicial review of the police’s handling of the criminal investigation. An application for that review is expected to be filed later this week.

Senior Labour leaders also said they intended this week to seek a new inquiry by the standards and privileges committee in the House of Commons.

The publication of the Times Magazine article has starkly exposed the fault lines in the media and political landscape in Britain. Papers supporting the government — including The Times of London and The Sun, both Murdoch-owned — have devoted little space to the new accusations. But media outlets critical of the government, including The Guardian, The Independent and the BBC — which itself is in a bitter feud with Mr. Murdoch’s company, which has extensive television holdings in Britain — have covered The Times’s article, and the subsequent calls for new investigations, extensively.

In an editorial, The Financial Times said that there should be an independent review of The New York Times’s accusation that “the police may have dropped a valid investigation.”

The Financial Times also called on Prime Minister David Cameron to investigate the matter. “Was he not reckless to have employed Mr. Coulson, given the murkiness of the allegations surrounding The News of the World?” the paper asked.