When Alastair Campbell was inside No 10 he used to note the monotonous regularity with which someone in the media trotted out the phrase "in the prime minister's worst week ever". I'm away from Westminster today but it occurs to me that no-one's used the phrase for David Cameron yet.
So here goes. This is why this week just might be a candidate for his "worst week ever"... so far.
• A bomb plot brings David Cameron face-to-face with the reality of the terror threat.
• He discovers that the police failed to find the explosives at first.
• Then he discovers that the President of the United States was informed more than 10 hours before him.
• And then he discovers that his junior home office minister had known about it for hours but didn't bother to tell her boss or No 10.
• Just as terror is in the headlines, news emerges of what the PM calls the coalition "car crash" about whether to keep or scrap control orders for terror suspects.
• His EU budget deal is hailed not as a triumph but a climbdown by the Eurosceptic press, his backbenchers and Norman Tebbit, who condemns a "Vichy-style betrayal".
• He is forced to concede that prisoners will have to be given the vote thanks to a European Court of Human Rights ruling.
• He is embarrassed by the revelation that the taxpayer is going to foot the bill for a personal photographer and camerawoman - a small fact but one which will be used again and again by his critics - see today's PMQs - to claim that he is a vain hypocrite.
It is only Wednesday so, if you permit me, I'll include Boris's warning - less than a week ago - that he would not allow London to be "cleansed" of poor housing benefit recipients.
We all said that the Spending Review was the toughest set of decisions ever to face a modern PM. Perhaps. But it also blocked out the day-to-day realities of power when things beyond your control and over which you do not take decisions go wrong.. and then go wrong again... and then again...
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2010/11/worst_week_anyo.html
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