Cameron makes poor start on the long road back

This was David Cameron’s most difficult press conference since becoming Tory leader. The Prime Minister refused to distance himself from Andy Coulson, a man he said was still his friend.

But this loyalty to his ‘friend’ placed Cameron in an almost impossible situation. Cameron remarked defiantly that you’d be ‘pretty unpleasant if you forgot about him’ but the longer Cameron defends Coulson and his decision to hire him, the more this scandal will stick to him.

Cameron repeatedly said that he gave Coulson ‘a second chance’. This is an awful line because it sounds like Cameron thinks he deserves credit for hiring him. Cameron needs to say urgently that he now regrets the decision to employ Coulson.

Intriguingly, Cameron said that he paid a company to do a basic background check on Coulson before hiring him. But he did not refer to what, if anything, the vetting report said on Coulson when he entered government.