How the official line has changed

15 April: Downing Street steps up push for full apology from three publications carrying allegations - Evening Standard, Mail on Sunday and Spectator. None is forthcoming.

23 April: Downing Street claims it has been "forced" to take the matter to the Press Complaints Commission and adds: "The Prime Minister has many things written about him which are untrue and he lets pass. But the idea that he would seek to exploit the death of the Queen Mother is totally without foundation and deeply offensive. Whatever sources they (journalists) may have they cannot escape the fact that the story is untrue."

10 June: Communications chief Alastair Campbell agrees to withdraw his complaint to the PCC. He tells the commission in a letter: "For our part, as our evidence to you makes clear, we believe the civil servants did nothing more than seek to establish what was expected of the Prime Minister ... we see no need to pursue the matter further."

13 June: Number 10 admits for the first time that there was contact - though indirect - between Downing Street and Black Rod on the day of the procession to Westminster Hall.

Without identifying Black Rod directly, the Prime Minister's official spokesman adds: "At no stage was there any intention to try to enhance the Prime Minister's role. The fact that others have chosen to interpret it in that way - or even to believe it to be true - does not make it true.

"I'm not pointing the finger at anyone. Anyone who has interpreted the contacts with Number 10 as being in any way designed to enhance the role of the Prime Minister is simply incorrect and wrong."