Cameron comes clean

Later on today, Downing Street will reveal all of David Cameron’s meetings with newspaper / media proprietors and editors since the election. This is a welcome move, transparency is the best disinfectant and by getting the information out there it will end speculation about precisely how close he was to various people in News International.

But one detail has already leaked out and will cause controversy: Andy Coulson was a guest at Chequers several months after he quit the government. In some ways this is no great shock, Coulson — as Cameron said at last Friday’s press conference — is a friend of the Prime Minister and someone whose advice Cameron valued hugely. But on another level, it is surprising that Coulson — having resigned because he had become the story — went to see the PM there.

One thing worth remembering in this case is that Downing Street, albeit under pressure, are releasing this information themselves.