So, who’s next after Andy Coulson? This question is oddly important, and will
certainly influence the direction of his government. It shouldn’t, but you have to understand the way the Cameron operation works – and of how life looked before George Osborne
persuaded Coulson to come on board (hoodie hugging, husky-riding, etc). Coulson was an advocate of
fundamental conservative values (crime, tax cuts, Europe) and emphasised their mass appeal. Tim Montgomerie has a list of
possibles for this job. But how to persuade them? Whoever does it can kiss goodbye to their life (and family) for the duration. No.10 is a pressure oven, and there’s a horribly large
chance that you’ll turn out like Alastair Campbell.
Whoever does the job will, in the end, find their reputation trashed somehow. The job is all-consuming. The buck has to stop somewhere. If it stops with you, that means you’re on call 24-7-365. If something blows up on Saturday, and your job is to stop it troubling the PM, you pull out of your daughter’s birthday barbeque. Whether you’re on duty or not.
So who would volunteer for the suicide seat? There’s a good chance that Cameron will give every assurance to the candidate that the job will be family-friendly – invite the candidate, and their wife, for dinner. But it’s worth recalling what Cherie Blair had to say in her memoirs about when her husband tried to woo Campbell. Her job was to soften up his partner, Fiona Millar:
“On the way there, Tony went through what he wanted me to do. My job was to be nice to Fiona, to reassure her that Tony was a family man, that it would be all right and that Tony had his priorities too and it wouldn’t ruin her family life. So that’s what I did, whether we were washing up, watching the children or chopping vegetables together on the kitchen table. ‘This is our chance to do something of real importance, Fiona. Tony feels Alastair has a real contribution to make. It won’t be that bad, as I’m not going to let Tony lose sight of the family thing.’ Of course, it soon became apparent that both Fiona and I had been bamboozled by our menfolk.”
As the Cameroons are such West Wing junkies, here’s Leo McGarry trying to make up with his wife – but admitting that being Chief of Staff took precedence over everything else. He buys her a choker and dinner, to apologise for never being around. His wife packs and calls a taxi. She tells Leo:
“I don’t want to live like this. I just can’t….” “This is the most important thing I’ll ever do, Jenny. I have to do it well.” “It’s not more important than your marriage.” “It is more important than my marriage, right now. These few years while I’m doing this, yes, it’s more important than my marriage.”
Leo spoke the truth: this is the trade-off you make. Job first, life distant second. Who will make that trade-off for the great cause of the coalition? That – and the sheer pressures of the job – is why the vacancy is so hard to fill.
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