David cameron

Thursday

David Blackburn

Phone hacking fag-ends

Yesterday, in his statement to the Commons, David Cameron responded to a question from Labour MP Helen Goodman about Andy Coulson by saying: ‘He was vetted. He had a basic level of vetting. He was not able to see the most secret documents in the Government. I can write to the hon. Lady if she wants the full details of that vetting. It was all done in the proper way. He was subject to the special advisers’ code of conduct. As someone shouted from behind me, he obeyed that code, unlike Damian McBride.’ The story has developed since then. Channel Four have been told by unidentified sources that Coulson’s lack

David Blackburn

Loyal Clegg’s slippery tongue

Oddly, David Cameron’s most voluble supporter throughout the phone-hacking psychodrama has been Nick Clegg. The deputy prime minister took to the airwaves when no Tory dared or wanted to. Earlier today, Clegg gave a speech-cum-press conference and he defended the prime minister again, saying that he had very little to add to Cameron’s statement yesterday. He also defended Cameron over unanswered questions about Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of BskyB; Clegg said that Cameron had “nothing to do” with the deal, although he added that Vince Cable’s reservations had been vindicated. Clegg then elaborated on media regulation. Unsurprisingly, he insisted that the status quo must change. It was ludicrous, he said, that

Wednesday

James Forsyth

The turning point?

There’s a feeling in Conservative circles that they have finally turned the corner on phone hacking today after David Cameron’s marathon performance at the despatch box today. At the 1922 Committee this evening, Cameron entered and exited to the banging of desks. But, tellingly, there were no questions on phone hacking and Andy Coulson. Instead, the crisis in the eurozone was the main subject of discussion. Cameron did, though, refer to the matter. At the end, he recalled how Peter Tapsell, the veteran Tory MP, had said of him that ‘he had never known a Prime Minister more adept at getting out of scrapes. But he had also never known

Jonathan Jones

The (non-)effect of Hackgate

No Labour bounce, no drop in approval for Cameron or his government. That’s the impact that two weeks of front pages dominated by the phone hacking scandal on the opinion polls:  Ed Miliband’s numbers have improved, which will come as some relief to the Labour leader who suffered a terrible month of polls in June. But despite a 13 point jump in the last fortnight, his net approval rating has only recovered to where it was six weeks ago, and that was hardly a rosy position. Certainly, Ed’s response to the scandal seems to have reflected well on him. 49 per cent of the public think he’s handled the affair

David Blackburn

Cameron’s letter to Watson

Tom Watson fired a barb at David Cameron during the oral questions following the prime minister’s statement. He referred to a letter about allegations against Andy Coulson he had sent to Cameron on 4th October 2010. The letter had gone unanswered and Watson wanted to know why. After struggling to answer for a while, Cameron eventually said he would respond, forgetting that he appears already to have done so. Here is his letter, just released by Downing Street: ‘1O DOWNING STREET LONDON SW1A 2AA 20 October 2010 Mr Tom Watson MP Thank you for your letter of 4 October. The Standards and Privileges Committee and the Home Affairs Committee have both

David Blackburn

“Why I hit Murdoch”

The Guardian’s Comment is Free has given a platform to the self-styled comedian Jonnie Marbles, who attacked Rupert Murdoch with a plateful of shaving foam. He says he did it ‘for the people who couldn’t’, which is ironic given that he couldn’t either after, owing to Wendi Deng’s bejewelled fist. This has sparked a debate about whether it is fit and proper to have allowed Marbles the space. CoffeeHousers’, over to you… PS: In a tweet that exceeds the limits of parody, Alec Baldwin appears to have called for David Cameron to resign as Prime Minister of England. The actor also adds that we’re a very talented nation. Joking aside, it’s an indication that this overblown story is

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron passes test

The questions following David Cameron’s statement to the House of Commons have just finished. As Cameron answered 136 questions, it became increasingly clear that the immediate moment of political danger appears to have passed for the Prime Minister. By the end of the session, Cameron was even joking about inviting Mrs Bone to Chequers for the weekend. In his opening statement, Cameron placed far more distance between himself and Andy Coulson than he had before. For the first time, he expressed regret about the appointment. He told the House that, ‘With 20:20 hindsight – and all that has followed – I would not have offered him the job’. This recognition

David Blackburn

A real crisis?

David Cameron is under pressure now that the phone hacking scandal has slithered its way closer to his door. The news that Neil Wallis informally advised Andy Coulson in the run up to last year’s election will spark questions about Cameron’s judgement and the competence of his leadership, as will the revelations about his chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn. Criticism is likely to come from both sides of the House: Tories I’ve spoken to are none too pleased about yesterday’s events. Cameron rebuffed his critics at last week’s PMQs by rising above politics to strike a calm and prime ministerial tone, for the most part. He will have to do so again.

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Brooks comes to Cameron’s aid, perhaps unintentionally

Rebekah Brooks’s  appearance before the Culture Media and Sport Committee was largely uneventful. Most of the questions addressed her editorship of the News of the World, a period about which she cannot openly speak at present because of the criminal proceedings brought against her. However, Brooks was very keen to distance herself from David Cameron. Towards the end of the session, Tory MP Philip Davies asked of the stories circulating about her relationship with Cameron. She took the opportunity to deny them and set the record straight. “I have not visited David Cameron at Downing Street since he has become Prime Minister,” she said and then added that she had visited Tony Blair and

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The crisis gets closer to the Tories

The news that Neil Wallis was informally advising Andy Coulson without the knowledge of any of the other senior figures in the Tory party is a reminder of just how dysfunctional the Tory party machine was pre-election. It is also an indication of the license that Coulson was afforded. The Tories cannot say if anyone else offered Coulson this kind of ‘informal advice’. The Tories are stressing that they did not pay Wallis or his company. But it is a massive embarrassment for the Tory party that two people who did work for it in its preparations for the election have now been arrested by the police. I expect Cameron

Monday

Daniel Korski

Some good news for Cameron?

In the midst of the fall-out from the phone hacking scandal comes some positive news for David Cameron: it appears that the Libyan rebels have won control of Brega, as most pro-Gaddafi troops retreated westward leaving around 150-200 loyalist fighters pinned down inside the town. If true, this is an important step towards the end of the Gaddafi regime: control of the oil-rich town is decisive for the Transitional National Council in Benghazi. It gives the rebels control over Libya’s eastern oil network, with access to more than 2m barrels of stored crude. And as Field Marshal Erwin Rommel said after his 1942 defeat at the hands of the British, “Neither

David Blackburn

Phone hacking tempest forces Cameron to shorten trip again

David Cameron’s long-planned trip to Africa has been foreshortened again. He will now return on Tuesday evening, as opposed to Wednesday morning. This, we are led to believe, is so that he can finalise the terms and membership of the Leveson inquiry ahead of Wednesday’s emergency parliamentary session. The scramble for Africa has become the scramble from Africa.  As this crisis deepens, the forthcoming public inquiries grow ever more important for the Prime Minister. Lord Justice Leveson will examine the alleged misdoings between members of the police and the media; Leveson will not convene until the conclusion of the criminal investigation. Cameron is also preparing another inquiry to investigate media regulation, now that the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Where are Cameron’s praetorians?

One of the striking things about the wall to wall hackgate coverage on the 24 hours news channels is the absence of Tory voices defending the Prime Minister. It is coming to something when the leader of another political party, Nick Clegg, is doing more to defend the PM than most of the Tory members of the Cabinet. One minister told me earlier that Number 10 was having trouble getting people to go on TV to bat for the PM. While many Tories are wondering where their party chairman is, in these circumstances you would expect her to be touring the TV studios. Cameron’s political spokeswoman Gabby Bertin is doing

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Yates goes as Boris stands by

Yates of the Yard has gone as the phone hacking scandal claims yet another scalp. Yates walked after being told he would be suspended. Yates’ departure was necessary given the appalling mistake of hiring Neil Wallis, a former editor at the News of the World, while the Met was investigating — or supposed to be investigating — phone hacking at the paper. There will, though, be particular pleasure in Blairite circles at Yates’ departure. They remain furious with Yates for his behaviour and tactics during the cash for honours investigation. The talk is of appointing a new Met Commissioner by the autumn. But given that Bernard Hogan-Howe was a finalist

James Forsyth James Forsyth

How Cameron can regain some initiative

The phone hacking scandal has now been leading the news for a fortnight straight. When a story has been on the front pages for this long, it develops its own momentum. If we were on day two of the story, I very much doubt that Sir Paul Stephenson would have resigned as quickly as he did or if David Cameron would have agreed so readily to extending the parliamentary session. Cameron is now out of the country, allowing Ed Miliband to stay on the front foot. The danger for Cameron is that Miliband constantly appears to be half a step ahead of the PM. Miliband’s line that Cameron is ‘hamstrung’

Matt Cavanagh

Missing the target

It has been a mixed week for Parliamentary Select Committees: they have regained some of their bite, but recent events have also served to remind us of their supine performances in the past. Yesterday it was the turn of the Defence Committee to seek our attention, briefing their latest report on the British military campaign in Helmand to the Sunday Telegraph. Under the headline ‘British Force Was Too Weak to Defeat Taliban’, we read of ‘a devastating report’ which is ‘deeply critical of senior commanders and government ministers’. But, the Committee have got some fairly crucial things wrong. They conclude that the task force was ‘capped at 3,150 for financial

Sunday

James Forsyth

Stephenson kicks Cameron on the way out

Sir Paul Stephenson’s resignation statement contains three paragraphs that hand plenty of political ammunition to Labour: “Now let me turn to the reported displeasure of the prime minister and the home secretary of the relationship with Mr Wallis. ” The reasons for not having told them are two fold. Firstly, I repeat my earlier comments of having at the time no reason for considering the contractual relationship to be a matter of concern. Unlike Mr Coulson, Mr Wallis had not resigned from News of the World or, to the best of my knowledge been in any way associated with the original phone hacking investigation. “Secondly, once Mr Wallis’s name did

David Blackburn

Miliband the hero

Garlands go to the conqueror. The Observer has interviewed Ed Miliband about his response to the News International crisis, and it’s as if Caesar has returned home after crushing the traitor Pompey. Miliband told the Spectator in an interview with James Forsyth in this week’s magazine that Murdoch’s spell on British politics has been broken. He reiterates that sentiment with the Observer and adds that Murdoch’s endorsement will be a “double-edged sword at the next election”. When speaking to James he was careful to insist that there was nothing personal in his burgeoning crusade against Murdoch; he is not so careful now.  “I think he has too much power over British public

Saturday

David Blackburn

The Lib Dems try to exploit phone hacking

The phone hacking saga continues interminably.  Simon Hughes appeared on Sky News earlier in the day to discuss the latest revelations. He refused to condemn David Cameron for entertaining Andy Coulson at Chequers and turned on Tony Blair instead. He said: “I’m much more critical of the fact that under the Blair era we knew, and this will all come out in the public inquiry, we knew that Blair flew just before the 1997 election to the other side of the world to meet Murdoch, we know that Tony Blair, three times in the ten days before the Iraq war was declared, was in touch with Rupert Murdoch” The Iraq

Friday

David Blackburn

At the PM’s pleasure…

Here is the list that James referred to earlier in full: Guests to Chequers from May 2010 to present Government guests and senior media guests: Danny Alexander MP and Rebecca Alexander Lord Ashdown Tony Baldry MP Greg Barker MP and George Prassus Lord Terry Burns and Lady Ann Elizabeth Burns Rebekah Brooks (June 2010 and August 2010) Brigadier Ed Butler and Sophie Butler Ian Cheshire and Kate Cheshire Ken Clarke MP and Gillian Clarke Nick Clegg MP Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles Brigadier James Cowan Air Chief Marshall Sir Stephen Dalton Alan Duncan MP and James Dundeath James Fergusson Stanley Fink and Barbara Fink Daniel Finkelstein and Nicky Finkelstein Liam Fox MP