Cameron in the Clear

As so often, a much-anticipated Commons occasion, with Prime Minister at bay, turned out be an easy triumph for David Cameron.

The main trap for the Prime Minister was the exchange of emails between his chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn and John Yates, the ex-assistant commissioner of the Met. Cameron’s explanation of that was clear: if he had wanted Yates to discuss the phone hacking business, it might have looked as if he were trying to interfere in the police investigation.

Good enough for most people and makes more sense than the conspiracy theories which none of Cameron’s critics can explain in simple language.

Ed Miliband made a huge tactical error. He went for detailed questions about this and that, ending with a ringing demand for him to … apologise for hiring Andy Coulson. Which he all but had.

Miliband should have claimed credit for forcing the Government to set up inquiries into phone hacking, for scrapping the BSkyB bid and for getting Rebekah Brooks to resign. And then made fun of Cameron for being useless with posh friends who he thought were influential.

Recent Posts on Eagle Eye

• The Dawn of Time
• The Fiction of Gatsby
• Why "build more houses" is not The Answer
• Cameron on Gay Marriage Should Make Us Proud
• What Focus Groups Say About Ed Miliband

• trottitout

  What is the relevance of you asking me about Shakespeare’s clown in As You Like It? At least, I presume that is who you are referring to? Do I lack cynicism and appear slightly innocent or what? 

• hunfred

  “I think” now don’t rise above your station!You are obviously talking from experience.But why do you keep repeating your self, when you could be making new meaningless and crass comments.

• http://www.yahoo.co.uk/ Firozali A.Mulla

  Prices certainly aren’t going to go up in the next 5 years. So why would you buy an investment with about 2.5% returns and no capital growth, which has significant risk. The risk in property at the moment is arguably more than the share market. Yet, shares are have a yield of about 7.5% (that’s 3 times the yield on property). Not only that, you’ve got to leverage into property, so you’re betting more than you have; whereas shares you can just use whatever spare cash you’ve got to buy what you can afford (margin loans are inadvisable). In the post-GFC new world order, yield is king. Tough times are ahead for us all. Leveraging heavily into an asset class that’s still near all time highs is beyond foolish. I thank you Firozali A.Mulla DBA

• http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/7DBXOHK7WJHLMASY3NBEGBPKZM NABIL

  yeah right…

  plausible deniability as always…

• http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/7DBXOHK7WJHLMASY3NBEGBPKZM NABIL

  one for one…

  but- what are you on about, Cameron was employing Andy Coulson, he had the right to know, and the police had a duty to tell him, of any impropriety Coulson was linked to…

  investigation or not…

  You are talking of a PM here, and a government… they are not supposed to employ possibly dodgy characters…

  your excuses and Llewellyn’s are pitiful and dangerous…

• http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/7DBXOHK7WJHLMASY3NBEGBPKZM NABIL

  Do not take much notice of Mr Rentoul, he is a  cheer-leader, apologist and vocal supporter of Mr Blair…

  It is obvious he will be awed by anything Mr (Blair Mrk 2) Cameron will say or do…

• http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/7DBXOHK7WJHLMASY3NBEGBPKZM NABIL

  you are looking at yourself in the mirror while you are saying that, right?

• http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/7DBXOHK7WJHLMASY3NBEGBPKZM NABIL

  … hi how are you…

  when is our rendez-vous with Planet X (Nibiru)?

• TarquinBroxted

  Are you a Trotskyite, Constable? I think we should be told.

• https://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/profile.php?id=100000011087981 David Myers

  I watched it on iPlayer this afternoon, and I don’t see how Cameron can be judged to be “in the clear”.  Milliband did very well, and Cameron was as evasive as the man he modelled himself upon.  There are more questions to be answered and this mud has stuck to Cameron.  The only real apology he can offer up is his resignation.