How close is too close?

David Cameron acquitted himself well at Leveson yesterday, as he does in all such events.  But it was odd to hear him say that there should be ‘more distance’ between politicians and the press. The implication of his comment is that he has been sucked into the brutal realpolitik of the newspaper industry; that he had to spend weekends with Rebekah Brooks or face electoral oblivion; and that the only question for Lord Justice Leveson is why politicians are left in such a position. I look at this in my Telegraph column today.
 
No one forced Cameron to get on LOL-terms with the editor of The Sun. Certainly, he wanted better media relations — especially after the near-death experience of the election-that-never-was in 2007. But rather than convince journalists, he tried to befriend them. His subsequent problems stem from this mistake.
 
Cameron was no media rookie. For seven years he worked for Michael Green at Carlton Communications. He did not just befriend journalists, but played tennis with them and went on holiday with them. He is better at handling the media than anyone he has hired to do the job. This skill is easily disparaged, but it’s vital in the small world of TV: an industry that is tightly regulated by the government. Cameron’s likeability, which springs from his essential decency, has many political advantages. But dealing with the press is about advocacy, making and winning arguments, and convincing people who instinctively don’t like you. Cameron is nowhere near as good at this.
 
To understand why he went riding with Rebekah Brooks, you have to appreciate that he sees politics as being social. He observes no clear line between his business and personal life, putting both in a blender. The result is what one prominent minister calls a ‘chumocracy’ — a political network that looks like a social network. (The Spectator drew a diagram of this web: it’s a messy mixture of old colleagues, old flames and Old Etonians). Even now, Cameron thinks the solutions to his political problems are social. Disgruntled backbenchers are sent to dinner with him; but the Cameron stardust, while remarkably potent, does not work in all situations.
 
One feels for poor Sam Cam (too normal to care overly about politics), who will have endured many dreary evenings as her husband tried to recruit into his chumocracy. I don’t think there’s anything venal or corrupt about what he did; it’s just ineffective. Charm is no substitute for a political mission. He should have spent more time composing a compelling agenda for government and a clear message — New Labour did this, and then added the spin. It’s hard to think how the Tories could have been given a fairer wind by the press. Not that it did them much good. As Kelvin Mackenzie put it, they failed to win in a recession against a turnip like Brown. Voters clearly felt that there was something missing, and they still do.
 
Cameron will realize that, in this era of hyper-scrutiny where text messages end up being quoted back at you in a courtroom, he should never have come nearly so close to Rebekah Brooks. He did an Icarus: got too close to The Sun. ‘More distance’ is needed, he says. Well, it’s his lesson to learn.