The Conservatives have called for a full inquiry into allegations that Downing Street staff hacked into a BBC computer system in attempts to influence news coverage.

BBC world affairs editor, John Simpson, writes in a new book that several of his colleagues were "morally certain" that their computers had been targeted in the months following the 1997 election. He claims that Downing Street was lobbying for changes to certain scripts, before they had been broadcast.

Number 10 dismissed the reports as "utter drivel."