He Did Everything Right

"LEO: ...in the two and a half hours we've been sitting here have you discovered one thing that he's done wrong? OLIVER: No. LEO: So, what's your problem? OLIVER: That's my problem, Leo. Are you out of your mind? He did everything right. He did everything you do if your intent is to perpetrate a fraud." The West Wing, Season2. Apparently - in this is only hearsay based on a lot of pre-election mutterings - The West Wing is one of David Cameron's favourite programmes. If it is, he certainly doesn't pay attention to it as closely as he should. The above quote is from a story line about how liberal President Jed Bartlett turns out to have concealed his Multiple Sclerosis from the US public prior to his election. Jed justifies this in two ways - he only intends to serve one term, minimising the chances that his condition will ever affect his Presidency, and he views it as a sin of omission, rather than a lie. He has always been careful not to put himself in a position where he is forced to claim that he does not have MS. Bartlett eventually realises that this carefully constructed morality is, in itself, wrong. Cameron's handling of the sticky News International phone has been steadily more sure footed over the last few days, recovering from a stodgy start where Ed Miliband was making all the running to look as though he might survive with his reputation intact. After all, he hadn't really done anything *wrong*, had he? Yes, he's trusted someone that he shouldn't have trusted, but really the blame was on Andy Coulson, and not his erstwhile boss. Cameron didn't hack phones; he was innocently exploited by someone who possibly had. But yesterday a new, interesting, angle appeared. Alistair Campbell and his Labour successors had been given the very highest security clearance (how else would Campbell have been able to get involved in the production of the "dodgy dossier"?). Such clearance requires the individual to be subject to very rigorous screening and investigation. This morning it was confirmed that Cameron's current press Chief, former BBC man Craig Oliver, also has top level clearance, and will have undergone the same examinations of his past. The really interesting thing, though, is that Coulson was not given such clearance, meaning that he did not have to undergo anything like as through an examination. This jarring blip in the sequence of high level access for Press Chiefs screams for explanation, because the one that springs first to mind is good old plausible deniability. If no-one exposes Coulson's possible misdemeanours, then Cameron can very fairly rely on the "trust" response. But if Cameron truly trusts Coulson, why was he afraid of what a security investigation would uncover? Despite that, David Cameron has insured that he really didn't know anything about Coulson's past, simply because he didn't look very hard. But there's no actual wrong-doing here, surely? Is there one thing that Cameron has done wrong? No. He did everything right. Oh dear.