Rebekah Brooks messaged PM 'I am so rooting for you' and 'we're definitely in this together!', Leveson inquiry hears

David Cameron came under intense pressure at the Leveson inquiry as he struggled to handle questions about his close friendship with Rebekah Brooks and how often he sought assurances from Andy Coulson about his knowledge of phone hacking.

The prime minister had difficulty remembering at the inquiry on Thursday how often he had met Brooks in Oxfordshire in the years leading up to the 2010 general election and was forced to discuss the meaning of a fawning "we're definitely in this together!" text sent to him by the then News International chief executive in October 2009.

When asked by Robert Jay QC, counsel to the inquiry, if he saw Brooks, also a former Sun and News of the World editor, "every weekend", Cameron found it difficult to give a precise answer. In the most halting period of his morning's testimony, the prime minister said: "I might be able to go back and check, but I don't think every weekend. I don't think most weekends. But it would depend."

Clearly concerned about the vagueness of his answer, immediately after lunch when the inquiry resumed, the prime minister said that he had talked to his wife, Samantha, who had checked his personal diaries for 2008 and 2009. Cameron said that because he was not in his constituency every weekend, he saw Brooks "every six weeks" during this period.

Brooks's revealing text, written the day before Cameron was due to address the Conservative conference, said: "I am so rooting for you tomorrow not just as proud friend but because professionally we're definitely in this together!" Sent a week after the Sun had come out in support of the party, Brooks went on to encourage the Tory leader by saying: "Speech of your life? Yes he Cam!"

The prime minister said the common cause identified in the text referred to the fact his party and Brooks's newspapers had the same agenda. "I think what it means is that we were, as she put it, we were friends, but professionally we as leader of the Conservative party and her in newspapers, we were going to be pushing the same political agenda."

Brooks's text began by sympathising with the prime minister over an unspecified "issue with the Times" – most likely a hostile article – and suggested that she could placate him over "country supper soon".

Jay asked if the country supper reference was "the sort of interaction you often had with her?" Curtly, the prime minister replied: "Yes, we were neighbours."

Cameron acknowledged that he was close to Brooks when she was editor of the Sun, until mid-2009, and subsequently chief executive of News International.

She had married Cameron's fellow Old Etonian Charlie Brooks in 2009 and lived a few miles from his constituency home in Oxfordshire. In her own evidence before Lord Justice Leveson last month, Brooks said she had texted him at least once a week – evidence that Cameron confirmed was accurate.

Cameron also defended handing the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, the task of overseeing News Corporation's controversial bid for BSkyB, saying it was "not some rushed, botched political decision".

He said he had been presented "with a situation I didn't want" after the business secretary, Vince Cable, was stripped of responsibility for the £8bn bid on 21 December 2010. Cable was recorded by undercover Daily Telegraph reporters saying he had declared war on Rupert Murdoch.

Cameron said it was suggested by Sir Jeremy Heywood, the permanent secretary at No 10 at the time, that the decision be transferred to Hunt. He added it that this was endorsed by the then cabinet secretary, Gus O'Donnell, and backed by legal advice.

"So I accept there is controversy, but I think the backing of, as it were, two permanent secretaries and a lawyer is quite a strong state of affairs," said Cameron.

The prime minister added that he was aware of what the culture secretary had said in public about the BSkyB bid, but did not recall a private memo sent to him by Hunt on 19 November 2010 in which he further outlined his support for the bid.

"It wasn't received on my email system," Cameron said. "The issue here is I don't particularly remember this note, and crucially, I didn't recall its existence on the day of 21 December when we were making this decision [to put Hunt in charge of the bid]."

Cameron said the decision had to be made "relatively rapidly", partly because of the pressures of the 24-hour news environment.

But he denied a suggestion by Robert Jay QC, lead counsel to the Leveson inquiry, that the decision had to be made "on the hoof" because Treasury solicitor Paul Jenkins was on holiday at the time and had to give advice over the phone.

"It was not some rushed, botched political decision," said Cameron. "If anyone had told me that Jeremy Hunt couldn't do the job, I wouldn't have given him the job."

The prime minister added that he had "no inappropriate conversations" about the bid with anyone from News Corporation, but did discuss it briefly with James Murdoch at a social event on 23 December 2010, also attended by Rebekah and Charlie Brooks.

"While I cannot remember the exact words I believe I said what Vince Cable had said about News Corporation was wrong and I am sure that I would have said that while I recused myself from the decision it would now be dealt with impartially, properly and in the correct way," Cameron said.

Jay suggested that following the Milly Dowler phone-hacking revelations in July 2011, Cameron was very keen "for political reasons ... to derail the BSkyB bid".

"I wouldn't quite put it like that," replied the prime minister. "The point was, with all that was emerging in terms of the dreadful news about the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone, that the public was rightly very angry about what had happened.

"While there was, quite rightly, a quasi-judicial procedure taking place, there was a broader issue of the views of the House of Commons, the views of the country, and the need to reflect those. And this obviously was difficult."

The prime minister was repeatedly asked about what assurances he had sought from Coulson about his knowledge of phone hacking, giving evidence that apparently contradicted what his former director of communications had told the inquiry. Coulson had told Leveson that he was only asked to give assurances about his knowledge of phone hacking at the News of the World at the time he was hired by Cameron in 2007.

But Cameron said he sought further assurances from Coulson in private shortly after the Guardian published its first investigation into phone hacking in July 2009, which triggered a select committee inquiry before which the prime minister's adviser was due to appear.

Cameron told the inquiry that "I had a conversation with him", to the effect of "when you make this appearance [before the committee], presumably you will give the undertakings again that you gave to me? That was the nature of the conversation, as I recall it."

The prime minister struggled to remember when he had sought assurances from Coulson around the time of his initial hiring in May 2007. Although Coulson said there was a face-to-face meeting and a phone call in which his appointment was decided, the prime minister said he thought the order of events was the opposite.

"I raised the issue of phone hacking and sought the assurance in the face-to-face meeting we had in my office" in March 2007, Cameron said, adding he was satisfied with the answers he received.

"I accepted these undertakings but so did many other people and organisations who did a considerable amount to try and get to the bottom of this issue."

Repeating remarks made last year, he added: "I've been lied to, so has the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service], the police, the DCMS [Department for Culture, Media and Sport] committee and all the rest of it."

When asked if he regretted hiring Coulson, Cameron observed: "You don't make decisions with 20/20 hindsight." He said he would be held accountable for employing the former News of the World editor, who faces perjury charges in Scotland and remains on bail in relation to allegations of phone hacking and illegal payments to public officials.

"I don't try and run away from it, I just try and explain," Cameron said.

Referring to the family of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, whose phone was hacked, Cameron said: "We're here because of the truly dreadful things that happened, not to politicians but to ordinary members of the public whose lives had been turned upside down when they've already suffered through losing their children. Their lives were turned upside down in a totally unacceptable way."

Cameron said it was a "cathartic moment" in terms of the relationships between the press, politicians and police, "which haven't been right, we have a chance to reset them and that is what we must do".