Why’s the government looking like a shambles?
Would it have been better under Coulson?
It’s half term, parliament’s not sitting, and most people in the Westminster village, it seems, are taking a short break.
But does that explain the total Horlicks that the government’s PR machine is making of current events.
There’s a massive global story with strong British links and the government operation should, surely, appear as though it is handling things competently.
Most people, I’d suggest, appreciate how challenging it must be dealing with Libyan – a country where everything is falling apart. Certainties like whether planes will be allowed to land are not there but this is not being communicated. It just appears a mess and ministers come over as being inept.
This could be politically dangerous and confidence could wane very quickly.
This has the feel of the lost computer disc stories that so damaged the Brown government in the aftermath of the October 2007 decision to abort the early general election plan. The government’s information machine was just not on top of it and the poll ratings bombed.
I wonder whether what we are seeing is down to the departure of Andy Coulson. He, surely, would have seen the dangers.