Is David Cameron an endangered man?

August 1, 2016

By Michael Goldfarb

LONDON — When the week started, things looked grim, very grim for British Prime Minister David Cameron.

The News of the World phone-hacking scandal had claimed Britain's top cop, Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Paul Stephenson, who resigned over his force's failure to investigate phone hacking properly. London's top counter-terrorism policeman, John Yates, had to do the same.

Rupert Murdoch had flown into town for a grilling by a parliamentary sub-committee looking into the affair.

And hovering over all of it was the suspicion that the whole thing had been hushed up and mis-investigated because The News of the World's editor at the time phone-hacking was rampant, Andy Coulson, had been, until January of this year, David Cameron's media chief.

Cameron himself was en route to South Africa for a four-day trade mission around the continent. Lousy bit of scheduling, that. While the PM's judgment was being questioned loudly, leaving the capital made him seem more than a little out of touch.

No wonder on Monday British bookmakers William Hill were giving odds of 16-1 that Cameron would resign by this weekend.

The questions about Cameron's relationship to the scandal were important. How did he get hooked up with Coulson? Was it to curry favor with Rupert Murdoch? Just how much influence did Murdoch and his chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, herself a former editor of The News of the World, have over Cameron — especially as they were trying to purchase the 61 percent of lucrative satellite broadcaster BSkyB they didn't already own — a purchase so big that the government had to give its approval.

Beyond that, why would he hire Coulson in the first place? You have a guy who had just resigned as editor of Britain's largest selling newspaper — one whose circulation was based in its industrial scale retailing of salacious gossip. Whatever Coulson's talents, Cameron is a professional politician — a man who understands how important public perceptions can be. In addition, his only real-world job outside politics was a brief stint working in public relations for a television company. He should have known to ask, how would it look to ordinary people if he hired the editor of the paper known to all as News of the Screws?

(More From England: Murdoch testimony: Theater of the highest order (VIDEO))

Actually, he shouldn't have needed to ask. Coulson was severely damaged goods.

One important part of the answer can be found in this phrase, uttered to newspaper executives shortly after he was elected Conservative party leader: "I am the heir to Blair." Among the many ways Cameron has imitated the former prime minister was in his appointment of a chief of media operations. Blair hired Alistair Campbell, a tough as nails former tabloid editor. Coulson comes from the same school.

The reason Blair and Cameron hired tabloid guys is obvious, according to former tabloid editor Roy Greenslade, "They [Cameron and Blair] lack the common touch."

Both Blair and Cameron were born to the elite, privately educated before attending Oxford. They don't speak the language of the person in the street. To reach ordinary voters it is useful to have someone with a tabloid sensibility running media operations.

Beyond that, said Greenslade, "They feel they are getting access to the editors' networks. In a firestorm, they know the right people to call."

Yesterday when Cameron marched into the Commons to explain once again his relationship with Coulson, he faced a genuine crisis moment. He pulled himself back from the brink by out-Blairing Blair. As the Iraq War unraveled, the former prime minister became famous for his long question and answer sessions with the press, parliament and special enquiries looking into dodgy dossiers, sexing up of intelligence and the death of David Kelly. He never blinked, never lost his cool. No one ever put a glove on Blair.

So it was with Cameron. Over a period of two and a half hours, the PM took a reported 136 questions from MPs. He was resolute and relaxed — after a sober beginning, he even cracked a few jokes. He quoted Margaret Thatcher in her final appearance in the chamber, "I'm enjoying this," he smiled, a couple of hours into the session.

(More from England: How phone hacking brought Gordon Brown to tears)

It is hard to imagine recent American presidents being capable of standing before Congress and taking two and a half hours of unscripted questions much less "enjoying" it.

President Barack Obama would go into deep law professor mode and after about an hour — Congress would surrender out of sheer boredom. George Bush … hmmm. Bill Clinton, could have done it — but then he was at Oxford. He can do the Oxford talk. But he also has a temper and somewhere around question 8 about Monica Lewinsky he would have erupted.

That's not the way Cameron works. Ask him the same question, impugn his honesty, laugh in his face in disbelief. He doesn't blush or blink, he just chunters along all valves stroking synchronously.

Cameron's performance seems to have taken the steam out of the crisis — on his own side, at least. Like Blair, Cameron is distrusted by his party's grassroots who think he is too willing to give up principles to occupy the political center. He met with Conservative backbenchers after the Commons debate and what might have been a rough session turned into a total love in.

The press — right, left and center — weren't as impressed. They parsed his non-admission admission that he discussed the BSkyB bid with Rebekah Brooks. Asked directly seven times by Labour MPs if he had discussed the bid with her or other senior figures at News International he did not say no, he said their conversations on the take-over contained "nothing inappropriate." It took me until the fourth time the question was asked before I got the fact that he was admitting it had come up for discussion. You may be faster on the uptake. The general public may not care at all.

And that is what may save Cameron in the long-haul. We are into the minutiae phase of the story. The scandal exploded over a clear, simple issue: the hacking of the murdered school-girl Milly Dowler's phone. While she was still missing her voicemail box which had been full was suddenly empty — after a private detective working for the News Of the World hacked in and deleted messages. For a few hours her family had hope, the police thought she might still be alive. Shocking and simple to understand.

Now we have entered the part of the scandal that excites investigative journalists: where the twisting turning details of the cover-up disappear into a fog of not-quite-provable facts. For readers of reporters like Seymour Hersh and Bob Woodward this is where they close the book and throw it against the wall in frustration. The British public may be ready to do the same.

One last bit of luck for Cameron is that the summer holidays for parliament began as soon as yesterday's debate was finished. The new police investigation and judicial inquiry will unfold in real time. It will take weeks for them to get set up and running.

But Andy Coulson will hover above Cameron for as long as he is prime minister. He will have to explain that relationship again … and again.

But for the moment it is not the problem it was 96 hours ago. Monday's odds from William Hill were 16 to 1. Today the bookies have taken down the line — Cameron's future is not in doubt.