Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World arrested on suspicion of involvement in phone hacking and bribing the police, was receiving payments from News International after starting work as the Conservative Party’s Director of Communications, the BBC reports. Coulson’s received hundreds of thousands of dollars in severance payments until the end of 2007, which means he continued to be financially linked to the UK division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp for several months during his tenure as David Cameron’s main media adviser, the BBC reports. The Conservative and Labor parties traditionally battle for the endorsement of Murdoch’s papers.