These thoughts have been bubbling around for a couple of weeks now. However the current Murdoch phone hacking drama has thrown them some focus. Although I dare say I'll break that by the end ...
For anyone living in a box, Murdoch, or more accurately his organisation, News International (NI), have been hacking phones. The
Guardian has been prattling on about this for at least two years now, with varying degrees of buy-in from the authorities, and other news businesses. A lot of it was dismissed as harassment by NI and the police.
Vindication has come in the last fortnight when it was revealed the News of the World (UK tabloid, owned by NI) had hacked phones of: celebrities (meh); families of 9/11 victims; politicians; and the clincher, the phone of Milly Dowler who was murdered a few years ago - what got the public's attention was the NotW deleted off messages as her mailbox was full. Thereby giving her parents hope she was still alive. Ahhh all class. Finally the other non-Murdoch papers have caught on, and the politicians decided that public opinion was strong enough to challenge Murdoch.
that last point is important, as the political class in the UK were in thrall to newspaper editors, and in particular NI. NI owns the biggest selling daily paper (the Sun - and no, I'm not linking to it), NotW (biggest selling Sunday paper, until it was axed last week), The Times and the Sunday Times. Murdoch and his various editors were frequently seen courting the politicians, so no politician was prepared to speak out.
It wasn't just a Tory thing either, Blair and Brown also kept NI close, although Brown's relationship with them seemed more fraught. Which, if nothing else, is a point in favour of Brown. Oh and NI possibly hacked Brown's phone or blagged info from the hospital, before running a story of his newborn son having
cystic fibrosis. Class.
So how does this fit with Davey-boy? Well, as mentioned Cameron has a close relationship with NI, the (now ex) editor of NotW Rebekah Brooks hung out with him, he had a number of dinners with high ranking NI people, and possibly of greatest concern, hired
Andy Coulson - the editor of NotW, during the main period of hacking, as his Director of Communications. Brilliant!
I'll get back to that, and how Cameron has dealt with the phone hacking allegations.
He's been in government since May 2010, and has managed to piss off pretty much everyone when he's tried to change policies or funding. Now, I'm not against all of his proposed changes, there is a hell of a lot of bureaucracy here, and as one example, the NHS does need reforming as opposed to tinkering - as most governments seem to do. He also seems keen to break the monopolies of Union's in the UK, and I suspect that's not necessarily a bad thing. The conflicts inherent in both of those examples relate to change, something the UK doesn't take to very well (in my experience). This conflict over change, has led to a number of protests and development of the Met's
kettling techniques.
What I've found interesting is that in each case, the mud, which should have stuck and caused massive political embarrassment, has slid off Cameron. He's been prepared to sacrifice Ministers when public opinion reaches a level he's uncomfortable with, and is prepared to perform U-turns on policies. These are described as indicating a listening Government, one that has enough confidence to change its policies on the basis of consultation and feedback.
In effect, this means that critics of the Government, and there are many, find it difficult to hook into an issue and critique it properly as the boundaries keep changing. The Government is also introducing a large number of policy changes, so creating a large number of fronts of conflict. thus splitting critics, and the public. I imagine for a large majority of people, and I count myself in that number, the sheer number of protests concerning policy change begins to meld into one amorphous blob.
It is this flexibility and shape-shifting that is keeping Cameron afloat.
What has really struck me is that nothing has stuck to him, sure he's been canny and used the LibDem's to front a number of unpopular proposals, and their ratings have plummeted. But Cameron seems to be pottering along nicely. I have to hand it to him, and the Tories, their policy introductions have been brilliantly managed.
So what has changed in the last fortnight? Well for one, Ed Milliband has found his voice. He decided early on in the debacle, to risk NI's wrath, and go after them. He didn't really have an option there, as his leadership has been, thus far, a little weak. So credit to him. Cameron vacillated, defending NI, Coulson, and anyone else, until it became obvious that public opinion has reached whatever threshold he uses to gauge issues, and then he came out all but saying that Brooks should go. Which, eventually, she did. So the Government, led by Milliband, suddenly decided that NI was fair game and started digging into them. Launching inquiries, criticising their behaviour etc. All the stuff you'd expect leaders of a country to be doing as a matter of course.
And yet, so far, Cameron appears to have escaped unscathed, again. He's managed this by his standard method of sacrifice, in this case using NI. What remains to be seen is when the inquiry reports back, how much did Coulson know, and how (or if) he lied to Cameron. Cameron's judgement in hiring Coulson looks doubtful at best, and his defence that the Met had vetted him will need to be examined. If only as there is now evidence that NI was paying off police officers, and that a top police officer left the force to write for NI (
Andy Hayman, described as a dodgy geezer -by politicians no less!),
others had frequent meals with them, and another
ex-editor worked for the police. Hmmm.
Given Cameron's ability to shift, removing the target from critics, I don't think this will bring him down either. The inquiry will take some time, by which time the public will have moved on. However, it will be interesting to see if this is the making of Ed Milliband as a decent opposition leader. He's been on form so far, and staked his claim early.
Back to the question, is he Britain's greatest politician? From a best for the country perspective, too early to say - depends very much on his reforms and what eventually happens with them. From a politically savvy approach, oh yeah - he makes Tony Blair seem positively static. And he had a huge majority to work with. This slippery approach makes it very hard to see what his end-game really is, unless it's politics and power itself. Which, as a career politician, makes sense.
Depending on how the phone hacking goes, as it does have the potential to bring down the government, depending on what revelations come out,and how well Cameron does at distancing himself from NI, I'm going for a qualified, yes.
You get what you deserve.
Most of the links are to the Guardian, but theirs has been the most indepth coverage, and well, I do read them by choice.
B (oohh a serious post, wow)
