The truth is, we have all been in this together -- the press, politicians and leaders of all parties -- and yes, that includes me

"The truth is, we have all been in this together -- the press, politicians and leaders of all parties -- and yes, that includes me," an agitated Prime Minister Cameron told a news conference on Friday, as he announced a raft of inquiries to show that "the music has stopped" on cozy relationships between Murdoch's media and the country's leadership.

"The relationship needs to be different in the future."

A former public relations executive, Cameron needs to limit the damage after revelations that journalists at the News of the World had hacked into the cellphones of ordinary people -- including a schoolgirl who was later found murdered.

But he also wants to end the tradition of close links between senior politicians and the Murdoch empire. Those links have been particularly close in Cameron's case: he frequently socializes with News International's chief executive Rebekah Brooks in their Oxfordshire homes. But the connections go back more than three decades and cross political divides, encompassing several of Cameron's predecessors. Political figures of all stripes are regular guests at BSkyB's annual summer party.

Murdoch's newspapers include the Sun, an aggressive daily that is Britain's top-selling paper. Until his company said it would close the News of the World, he controlled four out of Britain's 21 main titles, while BSkyB -- Murdoch currently owns 39 percent -- reaches 10 million homes.

It's not the first time Britain's notoriously muck-raking tabloids have been chastised. After Princess Diana was killed in a Paris car crash in 1997, a wave of outrage led to a press pledge to curb the use of paparazzi-style photos of the royal family.

But this scandal is about more than press behavior. On trial in at least one of the inquiries that Cameron called on Friday will be decades of collusion between politicians and newspaper proprietors, most especially Murdoch -- collusion that could also implicate the British police.

Ivor Gaber, professor of political journalism at City University, said it would be naïve to think the scandal's fallout will herald a definitive end to all that. The relationship between politicians and the media is too symbiotic.

"I think as big a story that will emerge is corruption," he said.