Lots of Love

Daveybloke's ex-cuddly communications director, Honest Andy Coulson, may just possibly have proven that giving a scumbag another chance can have unexpectedly redemptive consequences. Daveybloke, his heifer, Coulson and their mutual chum Rebekah Brooks have all been attending a music festival in Oxfordshire, since it's a highlight of the local social calendar and Daveybloke has nothing more important to do this week. Britain's leading liberal newspaper noted what Brooks was wearing, and a couple of paparazzi say that Daveybloke and Coulson met for a brief exchange of words. Downing Street has corroborated the photographers' story with a categorical denial; but the photographers rather suspiciously failed to capture on film what could have been an embarrassing encounter. There is no particular reason to believe that Daveybloke is anxious to meet his former chums in person, when he can talk to them any time he likes by untapped telephone or email, and invite them back into the Government as soon as some obscure clause in Theresa May's National Snoopery Bill makes News Corporation's activities not only legal but laudable. Sentimental fool that I am, I prefer to believe that Honest Andy's recent vicissitudes have left him with some vestige of pride, and that he took whatever measures were necessary to avoid any suspicion of physical proximity to the Prime Minister.