Reuters' Joel Dimmock (@ReutersJoelD) tweets: "Will be interesting to see if #Milliband softens attack on Brooks/Murdoch with focus on PCC, Cameron."

Ed Miliband liveblog here: bit.ly looks like he wants to scrap the Press Complaints Commission reut.rs

- A former senior aide to Prime Minister David Cameron faced arrest on Friday over his alleged role in a phone-hacking scandal that prompted Rupert Murdoch to close Britain's biggest selling Sunday newspaper.

- In a startling response to the scandal engulfing Murdoch's media empire, the British newspaper arm of News Corp announced it would publish the 168-year-old News of the World for the last time this weekend.

- As allegations multiplied that its journalists hacked the voicemail of thousands of people, from child murder victims to the families of war dead, the tabloid haemorrhaged advertising, alienated millions of readers and posed a growing threat to Murdoch's hopes of buying broadcaster BSkyB.

- The scandal has also become an embarrassment for Cameron.

The prime minister chose former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as his communications director, even though one of Coulson's reporters and a private investigator had been convicted of hacking into the phones of royal aides. Coulson insisted he knew nothing about it, but as new allegations surfaced, Coulson resigned from Cameron's team in January.

The Guardian reported that Coulson would be arrested on Friday over suspicions that he knew about or had direct involvement in phone hacking during his editorship of the News of the World from 2003-2007.

- Murdoch's son James, who chairs the British newspaper arm of News Corp, said the News of the World, which his father bought in 1969, had been "sullied by behaviour that was wrong."

"Indeed, if recent allegations are true, it was inhuman and has no place in our company," he said in a statement.

- The announcement that the paper's final issue will be on Sunday may even be a signal that the famously excessive practices of British tabloid journalism will be less prevalent in future.

- The news came as a shock to the 200 staff at the paper, which from its earliest days in the Victorian era sought to titillate the working class with sensational journalism about sex and crime.

"No one had any inkling at all that this was going to happen," said Jules Stenson, its features editor.

- Growing popular and political anger over the phone hacking saga had spurred concerns that there could be snags in securing government approval for News Corp's $14-billion (8.77 billion pounds) bid for BSkyB, of which it already owns 39 percent.

Cameron's government has given an informal blessing to the takeover, despite criticism on the left that it gave Murdoch too much media power.

- Speculation is rife that the company will turn The Sun, its best-selling tabloid daily, into a seven-day operation to tap the Sunday market. Despite difficult times for newspapers, the News of the World sold 2.6 million copies a week.

(reporting by By Kate Holton and Georgina Prodhan) uk.reuters.com

Special report - Murdoch row: why tabloids bin-dive and blag uk.reuters.com

RT @fieldproducer: Prime Minister David Cameron to hold a press conference at 0930 to address #NOTW phone hacking scandal

We should be starting in a few minutes

Jodie Ginsberg is now introducing Labour leader Ed Miliband.

The scandal here isn't that #NotW didn't seek the truth, more that it sought the truth too aggressively, and broke the law in doing so.

Miliband: I felt it was right at the end of a tumultuous week for British journalism to take a step back and to reflect on what it all means.

And I am glad I can do it here at the London headquarters of an internationally renowned news organisation that for more than for 160 years has maintained its independence and its integrity.

Reuters: we're almost as old as the #NotW!

Miliband: Second, politicians must be wary of tampering with the precious institution of the free press.

RT @jodieginsberg: A strong vital press is at the heart of our democracy: Miliband at Reuters newsmaker

Miliband: And the relation between politicians and the press has always been fraught.

The history of politicians complaining about bias, character assassination and falsehoods in the press goes back a long way and certainly predates the invention of the internet, the arrival of Rupert Murdoch in Britain.

Miliband wants to "stand up for the people against those who would exercise power without responsibility"

Miliband: But the truth is that we have all been lagging behind the public’s rising sense of anger and indignation about the methods and culture of sections of the press.

Miliband: This week, the dam burst

RT @reutersJoelD: Milliband goes after Cameron. Urges him to "come clean" over conversations with Coulson #NOTW #newsmaker

Miliband: The ethic of journalism is about a search to inform and entertain and get to the truth.

Preferably a revelation - an exclusive.

And yet in the name of that pursuit of an exclusive, we have heard allegations about how people working for the News of the World hacked into the phone of Milly Dowler, an abducted child, even deleting some of her messages.

Miliband: And we know these weren’t simply isolated examples committed by a rogue reporter. We know enough to have confidence that this was a systematic pattern of activity.

I like where Miliband is going with this: This is bigger than merely being a police issue.

Miliband blames both political parties for failure to address the issue. This requires more than police action, it's a cultural problem.

Miliband: I think it means we need a judge-led inquiry to shine a light on the culture and practices which need to change.