Andy coulson

The Conservative party may have lost its summer momentum, but at least it isn’t worrying about Ukip at the moment. Former spin chief Andy Coulson is doing some worrying in this month’s GQ on the Tory party’s behalf, warning that the party needs an even stronger message on Europe to counter the threat of Nigel Farage’s party. But some of his advice will hearten CCHQ, as spinners and researchers are already ahead of Coulson. The article says: ‘UKIP must be taken seriously so as to expose just how empty-headed it really is. Every utterance must be recorded and analysed, every speech given proper attention by some of the bigger, more

When Ed Miliband began at PMQs by asking about Egypt, it looked like he was going to do six high-minded questions on foreign affairs and thus dodge the political attack the Tories had lined up for him. But that wasn’t Miliband’s plan, after a couple of questions on Egypt he shifted to education. I suspect that by the end of session, he wished he stuck to what’s going on in Tahrir Square. For Cameron took the return to domestic politics as an opportunity to relentlessly batter Labour over its links to Unite and Unite’s behaviour in Falkirk. Cameron and Miliband went at each other with real needle. There was a

Hardly a day goes by these days without a story about Boris Johnson and the Tory leadership. Yesterday, it was Andy Coulson’s revelation that David Cameron believed Boris Johnson would be after his job once he’d been London Mayor. Today, it is The Economist talking about ‘Generation Boris’, the more libertarian inclined voters who the magazine suggests will sweep him to Downing Street in 2020. Now, for Cameron having as his main leadership rival someone who isn’t an MP is not actually that bad, however infuriating some in his circle might find the press and the party’s love affair with the London Mayor. What’s most striking about Boris, though, is

David Cameron was visibly rattled by Robert Jay QC, Counsel to the Leveson Inquiry, earlier today. Counsel was examining the relationship between the PM and Rebekah Brooks. Counsel concentrated on the text that Mrs Brooks sent Mr Cameron on the eve of his 2009 party conference speech. Mrs Brooks’s use of Cameron’s phrase ‘in this together’, which he used extensively in the subsequent speech, has led some to argue that their relationship was too close. In the morning session, Counsel asked Mr Cameron how often he met Mrs Brooks socially at the weekend. Mr Cameron was vague in response, only offering ‘well not every week’ in answer. (Mr Cameron returned from lunch with

Today’s Cameron-Clegg event was meant to be very different from the one in the Downing Street garden two years ago: grittier, more real. Watching it, one was struck by the fact that the two leaders still seem comfortable in each other’s company. The dynamics between them are better than those between Blair and Brown two years in. But, thanks to the compromises of coalition, they lack a compelling growth message for the here and now — as opposed to the long term — at the moment. One of their other problems is that coalition makes everyone focus that much more on the political process. The ears of every journalist pricked

During the government’s recent troubles, Cameroons have talked about the ‘window’ for action that David Cameron will have if Boris does win the mayoralty. But that window got a lot smaller with the news that Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks are appearing at the Leveson Inquiry on Thursday and Friday next week. Their appearances means that, next week, the media won’t be dominated by discussion of the Queen’s speech but by one of Cameron’s biggest misjudgments: his decision to get so close to News International. If there are anywhere near as many text messages between Cameron and Brooks as Peter Oborne alleges then it will be, at best, horribly embarrassing

“I said to George [Osborne] jokingly that when you’re prime minister one day I’ll have all the dirty goods on you, and he laughed and took a big fat line of cocaine,” says Natalie Rowe, a former madam of the Black Beauties escort agency, in an interview with ABC’s PM programme. She adds, “It’s been said in the newspapers that he was at university. He wasn’t. At the time he was working for [former Tory leader now foreign secretary] William Hague…I remember that vividly because he called William Hague insipid.” This is not the first time that Rowe has made these allegations against Osborne, as the above picture attests. The

Internationally renowned policeman Bill Bratton has agreed to advise the government on how to defeat gang culture. Bratton’s role is not official, but he will arrive for duty in the autumn nonetheless. The former LA police chief has already offered a diagnosis of Britain’s problems. In an interview with the Telegraph, he says that hoodlums have been “emboldened” by timid policing and lenient sentencing. Quite what this means for Ken Clarke’s justice policy, supported by the Liberal Democrats, remains to be seen. But the indications are that the government will bolster its law and order policies. Doubtless a wry smile will have broken across the face of Andy Coulson, who

Yesterday, in his statement to the Commons, David Cameron responded to a question from Labour MP Helen Goodman about Andy Coulson by saying: ‘He was vetted. He had a basic level of vetting. He was not able to see the most secret documents in the Government. I can write to the hon. Lady if she wants the full details of that vetting. It was all done in the proper way. He was subject to the special advisers’ code of conduct. As someone shouted from behind me, he obeyed that code, unlike Damian McBride.’ The story has developed since then. Channel Four have been told by unidentified sources that Coulson’s lack