The Spectator’s Notes | 29 January 2011

The departure of Andy Coulson exposes a weakness in this government’s management of the media.

The departure of Andy Coulson exposes a weakness in this government’s management of the media. Coulson was very good at sitting in on meetings of clever advisers and ministers and subjecting their ideas to the simple test of ‘How will this play with voters?’ His plain common sense is now absent. But even Coulson was not particularly suited to the much-maligned but essential art of ‘spin’. Because of the Blair and Brown years, this is now seen as the same as lying. It is true that lying has too often been involved, but the essential point is not dishonest. It is that the government must, always, everywhere, be explaining itself, distilling the political message from the mass of its actions and transmitting it through the media. In the present government, only George Osborne is good at this, and no one, elected or otherwise, sees it as his job.