Rupert Murdoch was set to fly to London to tackle a scandal engulfing his media empire while journalists prepared the last edition of the best-selling Sunday paper they say he has sacrificed to protect plans to expand his television business, according to Reuters. Meanwhile British Prime Minister David Cameron came under pressure to speed up an inquiry into the allegations of widespread voicemail-hacking, which could jeopardise News Corp's plan to take over the British broadcaster BSkyB . The scandal has also brought to light allegations that journalists working for Murdoch and others paid police for information. And it has raised questions about relations between politicians, including Cameron, and powerful media owners such as Murdoch, 80. Alan Rusbridger, editor of the left-leaning Guardian newspaper, which has led the way in uncovering the scandal, said in a video on the Guardian's web page: "We've had both the prime minister and the leader of the opposition making the kind of statements that a week ago would have seemed suicidal for politicians, essentially conceding they had turned a blind eye to the abuse of press power because they wanted to keep in with Rupert Murdoch." Murdoch, speaking only briefly on Saturday morning as he went into the last day of a media conference in Idaho, said the decision to close the paper was "a collective decision". The conference was ending around midday (1800 GMT), giving Murdoch, News Corp's chief executive, time to fly to London to see the last edition of "News of the World" on Sunday. News Corp, whose shares fell more than 5 percent in New York last week, declined to comment on Murdoch's agenda. A source familiar with his plans said Murdoch, who began his British media arm in the 1960s, was likely to arrive on Sunday morning. Analyst Claire Enders said News Corp was vulnerable. "As a business crisis, it is immense," she told Reuters. EVIDENCE A spokeswoman for News International, News Corp's British newspaper arm, denied allegations that an executive might have destroyed evidence relevant to a police inquiry into allegations that its reporters had illegally accessed the voicemail of relatives of troops killed in action. News International chief Rebekah Brooks, 43, indicated that more revelations may emerge in comments to News of the World staff on Friday, a day after telling them the 168-year-old newspaper had become "toxic" and would be shut. "Eventually it will come out why things went wrong and who is responsible. That will be another very difficult moment in this company's history," Brooks said on Friday, according to a recording carried by Sky News. Murdoch has brushed off calls for Brooks to resign due to her editorship of News of the World at a time when many OF the alleged hacking incidents were taking place. She denies knowing of the practice during her watch on the paper, which commands Britain's highest Sunday readership with its gossip pages, campaigns and photos of scantily clad women. Cameron, a friend and neighbour of Brooks, joined calls for her to step down on Friday at a news conference where he admitted that politicians had been in thrall to media for years, and ordered a public inquiry. The prime minister's close links with those at the heart of the scandal mean he too has been damaged by it but analysts say that, with probably nearly four years until a parliamentary election, he is unlikely to be sunk by it. The Guardian said police were investigating evidence that a News International executive may have deleted millions of emails from an internal archive in an attempt to hamper investigations. The News International spokeswoman said the allegation was "rubbish", adding: "We are cooperating actively with police and have not destroyed evidence." Journalists working on Sunday's last edition of the News of the World said they had been made scapegoats to protect News Corp's expansion in television. "There are 280 journalists there who have absolutely nothing to do with the things that may have gone on many, many years in the past," chief subeditor Alan Edwards told the BBC. A banner hung outside the newspaper's headquarters in east London reading: "Break up the Murdoch Empire". The paper's political editor, David Wooding, told the BBC the final paper would be nostalgic and all profits would go to charity. Another reporter said it would print 5 million copies, 2 million more than normal. BSKYB TAKEOVER Cameron's opponents have scented an opportunity in their efforts to block Murdoch's bid for the 61 percent of the broadcaster BSkyB that News Corp does not already own on the grounds it would give him too much political clout. Allegations that senior editors were involved in illegally accessing thousands of voicemail messages, and paying police for information, to get scoops, have now prompted many to ask whether Murdoch's group is a "fit and proper" owner for BSkyB. Cameron indicated a new assertiveness toward the Murdoch empire by withholding overt endorsement of News Corp's bid for BSkyB on Friday. British police on Friday arrested Andy Coulson, the former spokesman for Cameron who had resigned as News of the World editor in 2007 after one of his reporters and a private investigator were convicted of hacking into the phones of aides to the royal family. Coulson has also said he knew nothing about the phone hacking. Cameron announced a full public inquiry into the allegations at a hastily convened news conference on Friday in which he was forced to defend his judgment in hiring Coulson. The opposition Labour Party said on Saturday Cameron needed to appoint a judge quickly to get the inquiry going to prevent avoid evidence disappearing, pointing to the Guardian reports. "The clock runs out at the end of today," Labour Deputy Leader Harriet Harman told the BBC. "We ought to take precautionary measures." A spokesman for Cameron said he was moving as quickly as possible. "We have already approached the Lord Chief Justice, who will propose the judge," the spokesman said, adding that any destruction of evidence would be a criminal matter. After years of allegations about hacking the voicemail of celebrities and politicians, the scandal reached a tipping point this week when it was alleged that in 2002 the paper had listened to the voicemail of Milly Dowler, a missing schoolgirl who was later found murdered, and even deleted some of her messages to make room for more. That claim, and allegations that a growing list of victims included relatives of Britain's war dead and the families of those killed in the 2005 London transport bombings, outraged readers and caused many firms to pull advertising.
