The next few days will see David Cameron doing what he does best: looking the part. Whether it is the Jubilee celebrations or the Olympic torch relay, Cameron can be relied upon to know — or look as if he knows — what is expected of him as Prime Minister.
Cameron’s natural ease is his greatest asset. It is why Downing Street aides are convinced that this summer’s events will help restore his reputation. Combine this with the anticipated national feel-good factor and it is easy to see why so many expect that the Jubilee and the Games will ease the government to calmer waters.
Despite the lightness with which he bears the burden of command, however, Cameron is under a pressure which no other postwar Prime Minister has experienced: he is running a coalition. One Cabinet colleague calculates that Cameron spends more time on coalition management than anything else. On top of this come the demands of party management, which are becoming increasingly onerous as Tories from Cabinet-level down chafe at the constraints of coalition.
Two years into government, coalition management is a far more difficult task than it was. At the beginning, Tories and Liberal Democrats were surprised to find how much they agreed. Both sides once claimed that the influence of the other was improving policy.
But the trust which first lubricated the workings of government is now in short supply. Nick Clegg’s lot complains that David Cameron changed the coalition’s policy on the European Court of Human Rights at the last sessions of Prime Minister’s Questions without consulting them. Cameron’s crew, meanwhile, are irritated by the Deputy Prime Minister heading off to Berlin last week to give a speech on how to end the eurozone crisis, the text of which he released to the press before showing it either to them or the Foreign Office.
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