David cameron

In the past few minutes, David Cameron has apologised in Downing Street for a 'wrong decision' in hiring Andy Coulson. He said in 2011 that he would apologise if he had been lied to about phone hacking, and now he has. It wasn't the longest of apologies, but it came quickly. He said: 'Well, I take full responsibility for employing Andy Coulson, I did so on the basis of undertakings I was given by him about phone hacking and those turn out not to be the case. I always said that if they turned out to be wrong, I would make a full and frank apology and I do that today. I'm extremely sorry that I employed him, it was the wrong decision, and I'm very clear about that.

Other than the revelation that politicians like to use bad language (hardly a shock to Coffee House readers), what have we learned from the tapes, leaked to Polish magazine Wprost, of Polish government ministers and officials? The tapes include conversations about Britain's European policy, and they are not complimentary. Open Europe have translated the key exchanges, and offered some points here, but here are a few further thoughts: 1. Senior Polish politicians are resigned to Britain leaving the EU in 2017. Former Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski and Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski discuss David Cameron's EU strategy, with Rostowski concluding that 'I think it'll be the case that [Cameron] will lose the elections. Great Britain will leave.

David Cameron has not had the best of weeks. At home, he is engaged in a mucky fight with the former government aide Dominic Cummings and abroad he is facing defeat in his attempt to stop Jean-Claude Juncker from becoming president of the European Commission. But in the papers today, it is Ed Miliband who has all the problems. The Guardian splashes on how Labour frontbenchers do not want Miliband to stay on after an election defeat. If this story had appeared in almost any other paper, Miliband’s team could have tried to dismiss it as the price you pay for standing up to Rupert Murdoch or backing Leveson. But with The Guardian, this is much harder to do.

It's a row that won't go away, after Mr S revealed yesterday that the PM had labelled Dominic Cummings a 'career psychopath', Michael Gove's former special adviser has hit back, blogging: "At the PolEx party (18/6), Cameron said that I am a ‘career psychopath’. A) No10′s first reaction was to decide not to react to my interview, then one of his friends pleaded with me to ‘leave him alone because Miliband would be even worse’ and another threatened me (incompetently). The fact that Cameron then blurts out an insult reviving the story four days later is an example of my point about the lack of focus in No10. If they can’t decide a consistent line on me, what chance on ISIS?!

There must be an election in the offing because the PM was out and about last night looking for a manifesto. He addressed Policy Exchange’s (PX) annual summer bash in Westminster College Gardens. It was a gag a minute. He cracked rotten jokes about pig semen, and claimed that he was one of the founders of PX — adding that he only sat around eating pizza while the brainboxes came up with ideas which he then stole. How the people stared. He thanked Policy Exchange for providing his government with most of its backroom brains and spinners.

PMQs last week took place just hours after Mosul had fallen to ISIS. But despite this, not a single MP asked Cameron what the government's position on the situation in Iraq was. Today, though, Ed Miliband devoted all six questions to the topic. There was much consensus between Cameron and Miliband but one doubts that the governments in either Baghdad or Tehran will take much notice of what was said in the Chamber. Indeed, the Commons seemed oddly passive about the exchanges as if everyone was aware of the limits to Britain's ability to influence the situation. listen to ‘PMQs: Cameron and Miliband on Iraq’ on Audioboo One thing that remains striking is Cameron's conviction that a terrorist enclave in Iraq would be a direct threat to Britain.

As I reported earlier, Number 10 is adjusting its commentary on Jean-Claude Juncker's bid to become president of the European Commission to include plenty of conditional verbs. David Cameron appears to be giving up the fight, too. At his press conference in Downing Street with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, the Prime Minister said: 'There is an important principle at stake here which is that the accountable elected members of the European Council, the elected heads of state, the elected heads of government, should be the ones who propose who runs the European Commission.

One of these days, former Gove adviser Dominic Cummings is going to tell us what he really thinks. He's followed up his interview with the Times (£) in which he describes David Cameron as 'bumbling' and attacks the team around the Prime Minister with a blog examining the gap between politicians and the electorate and the failure of successive governments to learn from mistakes. The main problem for Number 10 in Cummings' analysis of the way it works is that he's not the only one who holds that opinion. He argues that Number 10, like MPs, has 'no real knowledge of how to function other than via gimmick and briefings' and that it avoids 'solving very hard problems'.

Another day another poll or, rather, another day and we have another two polls on independence. Scotland on Sunday today published an ICM poll which found support for Yes on 45 per cent and support for No on 55 per cent, a gap of ten points (once don’t knows had been excluded). But, most importantly what this means is that the gap between the two sides has narrowed by six points in the last month. [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.uk/mG0gU/index.html​"] According to ICM, the Yes side has gone up by three points since mid May while the No camp has gone down by three points. ICM has always maintained a good reputation for the accuracy and sagacity of its polling so this one cannot be underestimated. It definitely suggests that Alex Salmond and Co.

Although many MEPs believe that the European Parliament is the centre of the known political universe, in truth the goings on in Brussels and Strasbourg rarely trouble the attention of anyone who is not a dedicated EU geek. That said, the decision by the Conservatives' ECR group to admit the anti-euro Alternative für Deutschland party could have wider repercussions for Anglo-German relations, and therefore the prospects for Cameron's EU reform agenda. For those who are not familiar with AfD here is a potted history: the party was founded by German academics opposed to Merkel's Eurozone policies, specifically the bailouts. As it has grown, AfD has combined a more socially conservative policy agenda with populist rhetoric.

David Cameron addressed the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers earlier this evening. The meeting was upbeat because of the introduction of the winner of Newark by-election Robert Jenrick and brief because Cameron had to go off and see the Queen. Cameron only took a handful of questions but all touched on Europe. Cameron defended opting back into the European Arrest Warrant, saying it was part of being touch on terrorism. He also said that he knew that there were those ‘in this room’ who wanted to leave the EU altogether but the only way you’ll get an In Out vote is with a Tory government. Unsurprisingly, Cameron aimed plenty of fire at Miliband and Labour. He argued that while the Tories had a message for those voters who had gone off to Ukip, Labour didn’t.