Cameron at 10 Read online

  The joy of Florence’s birth turns his mind back to his grief at the loss of his six-year-old son Ivan, in February 2009. Ivan was born in April 2002 with the very rare Ohtahara syndrome which left him with both epilepsy and cerebral palsy. Ivan had a number of seizures over the years but his death came as a surprise and terrible shock to his parents. Gordon Brown cancelled PMQs that day out of respect. Cameron does not have the regard for Brown personally that he has for other PMs. But he did that day. Brown himself had lost a daughter, Jennifer, aged just ten days, in 2002: ‘The death of a child is an unbearable sorrow that no parent should ever have to endure,’ Brown said to a hushed chamber in the House of Commons.13 Nothing in Cameron’s life has affected him as deeply as the birth, life and death of his son Ivan. Birthdays and anniversaries are particularly painful. He and Samantha attend the church in Oxfordshire where Ivan is buried. He will never be the same man again. ‘David was just another talented Etonian until Ivan,’ says long-standing friend Andrew Feldman. ‘What Ivan gave him was compassion and humanity.’14 Those closest to him agree that Ivan has softened him and given him a humility he might not otherwise have developed. Cameron’s fondness and respect for the NHS is another impact: ‘I am someone who has relied on the NHS … who knows what it’s like to go to hospital night after night with a child in your arms … knowing that when you get there, you have people who will care for that child, and love that child like their own,’ he says in his party conference speech four years later, visibly and unusually allowing emotion to break through in public. Few have so shaped his premiership as much as Ivan.

  If Ivan and Ian were the greatest influences on him, Samantha is the sheet anchor of his life and premiership. She brings him down to earth. ‘She is so creative and supportive. The key thing for me is sanity at home. Samantha is absolutely amazing at it,’ he says. ‘Take our first summer in 2010. We’d been living in the flat above Downing Street and then we went off to Cornwall, and she had our baby and somehow or other she manages to completely redesign our flat and make it a home for us all.’15 He cannot fathom how she manages to bring up the family, maintain her own work as a creative consultant at the luxury leather goods firm Smythson, and be extensively involved in charity without courting personal publicity.

  Her head is not turned by the glamour of her role; indeed, a criticism is that she is too retiring in her role as ‘First Lady’ and does not attend as many official events as might a more ambitious consort. Equally, no PM’s wife in the modern era, with the exception of Cherie Blair, has simultaneously managed to cope with having a child while bringing up a family in Number 10. Samantha takes care not to express her views in public, and only rarely to her husband in private. Although from a privileged background herself, her down-to-earth approach to life has helped smooth away some of his more privileged attitudes and opinions, epitomised by his membership of the much-ridiculed upper-class Bullingdon Club when at Oxford from 1985–8. She has become content enough at Downing Street, but she looks forward to the day when the commotion of their lives there is over.

  Besides the impact of Samantha, he attributes his almost uncanny calm in the face of constant pressures and adversities to ‘getting the diary right’, by which he means help to ensure he feels in control of his life, allowing him time to exercise and to rest.16 Routine is very important. He becomes impatient when he feels time running away, with his good humour giving way to bad temper. Weekends are sacrosanct. Early on in the premiership, the family regularly go to Chequers. They value the help that the Chequers staff give with baby Florence and the other children. But the seclusion of their home in Dean, near Chipping Norton in the Cotswolds, proves increasingly alluring and homely. They are happiest when having friends to dinner on Saturday evening or to lunch on Sunday, after a long walk in the morning. On Sunday evening, they arrive back at Downing Street by 7.00 or 7.30 in time to put the children to bed. He will always talk to George Osborne and often to Nick Clegg on Sunday evenings, either in person, or by phone from the car.

  To have lost a much-loved son and a powerful and adored father in little more than a year, and entering Downing Street at such a young age, would have been a daunting prospect for any prime minister. Cameron is the linchpin, the steadying presence, who holds his whole family together. These formative experiences draw him even closer to Samantha, to his brother Alex, to his mother Mary, and to his three surviving children, as well as to his close circle, above all Llewellyn, Fall, Hilton, Osborne and Coulson. Within the next few months, at a time of great vulnerability, two of these close aides will fall.

  EIGHT

  Coulson Departure

  May 2010–February 2011

  ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ It is Saturday 25 September 2010 and George Osborne is on his knees. He is fixated on the television screen, in the company of Cameron and Andy Coulson. It isn’t positive news of the latest quarterly figures that has brought him to this position. It is something that he knows will have a much greater bearing on the outcome of the 2015 election. Ed Miliband is announced leader of the Labour Party, beating brother David by only just over 1% of the vote (50.65% to 49.35%), and Cameron’s team are fizzing with excitement. For the first three rounds of counting, David was ahead of his brother, but in the fourth and final ballot Ed edged over the 50% mark required for overall victory. While David is supported by most Labour MPs and constituency parties, Ed has secured the backing of the trade unions, sufficient to tip the balance in his favour. Cameron and Osborne fear David. They don’t fear Ed. Cameron agrees with his ultra-political strategist-in-chief. ‘Ed will be a thousand times better for the Conservatives,’ he says. Ed Miliband will take Labour more in the direction of Gordon Brown’s failed policies and he is ‘much less confident’ than his brother, he thinks – not that he knows either brother well.

  The news plays into their hands at the party conference in Birmingham the following week, the first for fourteen years in which they have been in power. Cameron’s team had sought to undermine Labour’s conference by arguing that when the party was in power, it had brought the country to its knees with its spending and borrowing. Now that Ed, a principal architect of that strategy, is the leader, it is a much more telling line of attack.

  The Tories start arriving in Birmingham in high spirits. They cheer to the rafters when Osborne announces a benefit cap of £500 per week per household.1 Boris Johnson, always a conference favourite, further whips up the delegates when he announces he will run for re-election as London mayor in 2012. David Cameron delivers a feel-good speech, light on policy commitments. It is not the product of intensive preparation as his conference speeches are to be later. Cameron and Osborne have piloted the party into government, are sorting out the national finances, and are overseeing a frantic pace of domestic reform. For all the early criticism of Plan A and the pain likely to be endured, the novelty of coalition government has not yet worn off in the public’s mind. But the storm clouds are gathering. Cameron and Osborne are about to reveal how naive and inexperienced they both still can be.

  In late 2006, one year into Cameron’s leadership of the party, they were not getting their message across and concluded they needed a dynamic head of press. Rupert Murdoch was far from impressed with Cameron at the time, considering him little more than ‘a PR guy’. Conscious of their upper-middle-class backgrounds, Cameron and Osborne searched for a ballsy figure with the common touch to project their modernising message more effectively to the country at large. They were not inundated with contenders. Enter Andy Coulson. On 26 January 2007, he had resigned as editor of the News of the World, denying all personal knowledge of phone hacking but taking responsibility for it having occurred under his watch as editor.2 Osborne had got to know Coulson, while Cameron had met him a few times when Coulson was still editor. It was Osborne who first identified Coulson as a candidate for the new role of director of communications. When Osborne met him to float the idea, he was quickly convinced that the former tabloid editor could give them the populist edge
they needed to take the fight to Labour.

  Coulson met Cameron in his Norman Shaw South office in the spring of 2007. Cameron talked about the job and liked what Coulson had to say: he asked about the hacking concern, and Coulson reassured him about his own role in the affair. Cameron did not probe him deeply, anxious perhaps not to frighten him off, and avoided asking the most searching questions. Coulson subsequently saw Steve Hilton and then Francis Maude and Ed Llewellyn together. Later that spring, Cameron phoned Coulson while on holiday in Cornwall. Coulson again reassured him he knew nothing of the antics of Clive Goodman, the News of the World’s royal reporter who had been convicted of phone hacking.3 That was the green light Cameron needed. At the end of May, Coulson’s appointment was announced.

  The first two years went smoothly. Coulson was rigorously professional, and his skill at bringing discipline to the relationship between the Conservative leadership and the media was prized highly by Cameron’s team. ‘What was there not to like,’ one insider said, ‘his understanding of the media was brilliant. He proved much stronger at broadcasting than people thought. He was from Essex. He had edited a red top and had a sophisticated political brain.’ Coulson began rapidly to secure much better headlines for the Conservatives, and for a time all was relatively calm. He achieved the ultimate accolade of admission to the inner circle of Osborne, Llewellyn, Hilton and Kate Fall.

  The Guardian had been engaged in a long investigation into phone hacking, and refused to let the matter rest. Hot in pursuit also were two Labour MPs, Tom Watson and Chris Bryant. In July 2009, the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee summoned Coulson to appear before it to investigate phone hacking. Again Coulson denied any knowledge. The committee concluded, however, that it was ‘inconceivable’ that News of the World executives had not known about phone hacking, accusing them of suffering from ‘collective amnesia’.4

  Cameron felt that Coulson was being unfairly victimised, and on 9 July said: ‘I believe in giving people a second chance.’5 He considered that Coulson had already paid for any errors or oversights when he lost the editorship of a high-profile paper, and said he believed that the attacks were politically motivated. Murdoch had slowly begun to approve of the direction Cameron was leading the Conservative Party in, and during the Labour Party conference in late September 2009, with Labour probably at its lowest point since the night of the 1992 election, the Sun announced that it would be supporting the Conservatives at the upcoming general election, having supported Labour for the previous twelve years and three general elections.

  However, concerns about Coulson refused to go away. In early 2010, the Guardian reported that Coulson had employed a private detective who had been jailed for conspiracy.6 The paper then followed up with calls to Steve Hilton, but it is unclear whether Hilton informed Cameron himself.7 Representations came into Number 10, reportedly from Buckingham Palace and the upper echelons of Whitehall, questioning the suitability of Coulson moving into Number 10 as director of communications, if the general election was won. Clegg was another who counselled restraint in appointing him, while Paddy Ashdown, Clegg’s mentor, went further, later saying, ‘I warned Number 10 within days of the election that they would suffer terrible damage if they did not get rid of Coulson, when these things came out, as it was inevitable they would.’8

  Even Coulson himself told Cameron that he would be happy to call it a day and not join the premiership team. His suggestion was ignored. Cameron and Osborne were contemplating taking on the biggest challenge of their lives, running the country, and they were in no mood to jettison their worldly press adviser on the threshold of power. Coulson duly moved across into Number 10, to the surprise of some inside and outside the Conservative Party.

  His first few months at Number 10 belie the concerns and appear only to confirm Cameron’s and Osborne’s judgement in sticking by their man. Coulson sets up camp in Number 12, in the same space where Brown had based himself alongside his media outfit and other chief aides. Coulson establishes strong and good relations with all media outlets, and imposes a calm and reassured regime within Downing Street. He pivots the day around two meetings: at 8 a.m., half an hour before the PM’s morning meeting with the core members of the Number 10 team, including Jeremy Heywood and George Osborne; and at 5 p.m., after the even more important 4 p.m. meeting, when further key decisions are taken. He swiftly builds a strong relationship with Jonny Oates from the Lib Dems, whom he appoints as his deputy, and Lena Pietsch who subsequently replaces Oates when Oates becomes Clegg’s chief of staff. Remaining sceptics are won over by Coulson’s professionalism and personal consideration: ‘He was very well liked, doing things people don’t normally do in that world like buying people presents,’ says an aide. Relations remain fiery with Hilton, a hangover from their long and bitter disputes in Opposition. But this relationship is an exception to the rule. Civil servants remaining in Downing Street through the transition come to see his considerable strengths. It is Coulson’s recommendation that the savvy Treasury official Steve Field becomes the PM’s official spokesman – a successful appointment.

  But rumblings about him refuse to go away. On 1 September, the New York Times publishes on its website a lengthy account of phone hacking at News International claiming that Coulson himself had known about it.9 This is dynamite. His appointment to Number 10 is beginning to fail the ‘smell test’. Cameron and Osborne dig in further, compounding their earlier lack of rigour in probing Coulson’s knowledge of the affair by refusing to reconsider the wisdom of confirming his appointment. Indeed they feel it would appear weak to cut him loose in the absence of direct evidence linking him to the scandal. They hope that the noise will simply go away. It doesn’t.

  The weeks following the party conference in Birmingham see Coulson’s reputation go into free fall. Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell worries that Cameron is not wanting to face up to the issue, nor to probe further into the truth of the allegations. Nor is he happy with Coulson saying that he will quit if it becomes too big a distraction: this is an admission of guilt, he believes, and tells Cameron so. Cameron still holds his ground: he appointed Coulson on the basis of what he knew at the time, and he will not now abandon him to satisfy those trying to prise him out. To do so, he says, would be to show weakness to his many enemies. He hasn’t even been charged with any crime, Cameron maintains, let alone been convicted. Internally, though, the unity of Cameron’s court is beginning to fracture. Hilton has begun to think he should go: Osborne, Fall and aide Gabby Bertin think he should stay. ‘Our whole stance was not to question what Andy said, but to accept his validation and to defend it,’ says one of them. ‘We believed it, because we made ourselves believe it.’ Coulson is willing to stand down. Again Cameron persuades him to stay. Fatally, Coulson accepts.

  By December, the pressure becomes almost unsustainable. On the 21st, the Daily Telegraph publishes a transcript of Business Secretary Vince Cable stating that he has ‘declared war’ on Murdoch and will block the proposed takeover of BSkyB by News International’s parent company, News Corp.10 Following the advice of the Treasury solicitor, which stresses the need for impartiality, Cameron strips the Business Secretary of his quasi-legal responsibility for competition and media policy, giving it to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt. Suspicion is fuelled that he is protecting the Murdoch group. Ian Edmondson, news editor at the News of the World, is suspended early in the New Year over allegations of phone hacking at the paper in 2005–6.11

  By the third week of January 2011, Coulson’s position is untenable. He quits on the 21st, saying, ‘When the spokesman needs a spokesman, it’s time to move on.’12 Cameron is mortified. ‘I’m very sorry that Andy Coulson has decided to resign,’ he announces. ‘Andy has told me that the focus on him was impeding his ability to do his job and was starting to prove a distraction for the government … he can be extremely proud of the role he has played, including for the last eight months in government.’13 Andrew Feldman says, ‘David depended on Andy for so many thi
ngs. He respected him, and valued his advice deeply.’14 Cameron knows instinctively that his communications director’s departure will give licence to all who resent his leadership to come out into the open, not least the Tory MPs still simmering after the expenses scandal.

  Many in Number 10 are devastated to see Coulson go. There are plenty of tears. Not from Hilton, though, who views it as the opportunity for a major push on the Big Society. But he is at one with the rest of Cameron’s team hoping that the boil has finally been lanced, and that they can look forward to a busy spring without further distractions. Yet the press reaction worries them. It is overwhelmingly negative, typified by the Independent, which says: ‘This affair casts serious doubt on the prime minister’s judgement. He saw fit to appoint Mr Coulson as the Conservative Party’s director of communications when the former editor was tarred by association with the phone-hacking scandal. Why would he want such a compromised spokesman? Was he naive enough to believe Mr Coulson’s assurances? Or did he not care about what had taken place? Neither scenario is very comforting.’15 While naivety is certainly the more plausible explanation, there can be no doubt that there was an abject lack of judgement.

  Cameron and Osborne move quickly to cover the gap. The search is on for a successor to Coulson. Because of their reluctance until the last minute to see him go, planning for this eventuality has not taken place. Although not his first choice, Coulson suggests Craig Oliver who had run World News at the BBC, as well as editing the Six O’Clock News and News at Ten. Oliver is summoned to Chequers where he talks to Cameron. They get on well. Llewellyn and Osborne approach the BBC’s political editor, Nick Robinson, for his professional views of Oliver: his reference is positive. As the job is partly an official role, Heywood is brought in: he is impressed by Oliver’s experience at running media programmes.