The Furies gather around David Cameron
Published in: Melanie's blog
Tory MPs have been miserably wondering aloud why David Cameron has not launched a counter-offensive in the hacking scandal which places Labour firmly in the dock. The answer is simple. Cameron is paralysed because he is himself compromised; and the evidence to the Commons committee today by Assistant Metropolitan Police Commissioner John Yates will hardly have eased his discomfort in advance of tomorrow’s emergency debate on the scandal in the House of Commons.
For asked why he had not brought to the government’s attention the Met’s employment of former News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis, Yates replied that he had offered to brief the Prime Minister on certain aspects of the hacking case – but that Cameron’s Chief of Staff (Ed Llewellyn) had turned down his offer, and advised the Met not to brief the Prime Minister on them (whatever they were -- this remained mysterious)
Why not?
Ed Llewellyn is already in the frame for allegedly not passing on to Cameron warnings about the extreme inadvisability of employing Andy Coulson as his spin-doctor. What was going on here?
But involvement in this scandal cannot be dumped on Cameron’s staff. The buck stops with the top man. And more was involved here than merely the unwise hiring of Andy Coulson. There was Cameron’s apparently close friendship with Rebecca Brooks and his involvement with the younger Murdochs in the Chipping Norton set.
Worse, the Prime Minister has behaved as if he has something to hide by failing to reveal certain sensitive contacts which have now been revealed.
There was the revelation, for example, that he invited Andy Coulson to Chequers in March, two months after the former NoW editor had resigned as Downing Street's director of communications because of the gathering scandal.
Yesterday, he was forced to reveal that Rebekah Brooks was a guest at his 44th birthday party at Chequers last October.
And today, he was accused by a Labour MP of breaking the ministerial code governing conflicts between public duties and private interests after the Telegraph revealed that he and his wife shared a family dinner with James Murdoch and his wife and Rebekah Brooks, then chief executive of News International, and her husband on December 23 last year.
Two days previously, Mr Cameron had removed decision-making powers over the BSkyB bid from Vince Cable after the Business Secretary made unguarded comments that he had ‘gone to war’ with Rupert Murdoch.
Of course an excellent and urgent case can and should be made against the Labour hypocrites now slavering at the prospect of bringing down both the Murdoch empire and the Prime Minister. Of course it is excruciating that such people are making such hay. But the reason is that Cameron has been all but paralysed by the fact that he cannot pose as the disinterested arbiter of justice and order in this scandal – because it is lapping right at his own door.
We know David Cameron performs best when his back is to the wall. It will be there tomorrow.
