DAVID CAMERON set up the Leveson inquiry to divert attention from his hiring of Andy Coulson as his spin doctor, a former Met chief was reported to have said yesterday.

Sir Paul Stephenson, who resigned from the Metropolitan Police over his links with former News Of The World executive Neil Wallis, claimed the Prime Minister had an agenda to “spread the heat around.”

Disgraced former News of the World editor Mr Coulson was forced to resign as No 10’s director of communications and later jailed for conspiring to hack phones.

The claim is the latest in a string of allegations made in a biography of Mr Cameron by former Tory donor Lord Ashcroft and journalist Isabel Oakeshott.

In the latest extract of Call Me Dave published in the Daily Mail, Sir Paul is quoted as saying: “I think they deliberately spread it wider to try to take the flak away from the decision to employ Coulson.

“I think there was a very strong agenda there to spread the heat around.”

The book also alleges that former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks may have exerted pressure on the PM to launch the inquiry in an effort to spread the blame for phone-hacking around the British press.

Lord Ashcroft’s book has already caused huge embarrassment for the Tory leader with claims published earlier this week that he took part in a bizarre student initiation ceremony involving a dead pig and a “private part of his anatomy.”

Lord Ashcroft — who bankrolled the Tories to the tune of £8 million while they were in opposition — apparently chose to write the book due to his belief that Mr Cameron had gone back on the promise of a senior ministerial role after the 2010 general election.