Danny Finkelstein’s paean of praise (£) to Andrew Cooper, the PM’s new director of political strategy, contains
several interesting lines. Finkelstein says that his former flat mate’s biggest challenge is, ‘Devising a strategy for changes in the NHS so that a critical political battle
isn’t lost disastrously’. This is yet another indication of how nervous Osborne and co are about Lansley’s reforms and reopening the NHS as a political issue.
The second is him reporting that Cooper will tell ‘Cameron to be a national leader, rather than a party politician. Especially in the Commons.’ To date, Cameron has been — with some notable exceptions such as his statement on Bloody Sunday — an aggressive Commons performer. Nearly every session of PMQs has involved the PM hurling a serious of pre-prepared insults at Ed Miliband.
Cameron seems to accept the intellectual case for not using PMQs in this way; he has talked before about ending Punch and Judy politics. But he has not been able to resist the temptations of the Commons’ bear pit. Whether Cooper can get Cameron to change his approach to PMQs will be a fascinating barometer of the strategist’s influence on the Prime Minister.
Comments