By Sam Macrory - 13th July 2011
Having spent the week ensuring a guaranteed low profile by giving speeches on his Big Society project, the prime minister today found himself squinting in the sunlight, or at least the low wattage bulbs of the House Commons.
The eye bags looked a little heavier, the skin a little paler, and the sizeable brow seemed to have gained an extra crease.
Unsavoury tales of phone-hacking and the apparent meltdown of Rupert Murdoch's News International empire do not seem to have been good for the prime minister's health, while George Osborne, usually so keen to share his opinions from a sedentary position, was also looking decidedly peaky as he sat beside the PM.
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, on the other hand, was as happy-looking as his poker-face allowed.
But the effect on Ed Miliband, who appears to have been on a diet of protein shakes and a session on the heavy weights, has been rather more positive, with the roar which greeted his first question confirming the obvious – this had been a very, very good week for the Labour leader.
For as Miliband set the political tune with an all out attack on the Murdoch empire, Cameron has been left dancing the awkward dance of a man not able to keep up with the beat.
Today he came up with a solution. Watch closely, copy, and agree with each question from the Labour leader.
No more 'second chances' for Andy Coulson, no more refusal to comment on Rebekah Brooks, and certainly no more determination not to offend mean old Mr Murdoch(s).
Instead, Cameron had grasped the obvious – Miliband's rhythm matches the public's, and it was time to get in step.
Should Rebekah Brooks still be in post, Miliband asked. No, said Cameron, it was right for her to resign.
Should Rupert Murdoch heed any vote on his takeover of BSkyB? Yes, said Cameron, he should see that the world had changed.
Should he have appointed Andy Coulson? Cameron said he had taken Coulson's assurances as truth, but "if it turns out he lied, it won't just be that he shouldn't have been in government, it will be that he should be prosecuted."
And with that, his old ‘friend’ Coulson was cast aside: unthinkable a week ago.
Well-rehearsed, or at least relentlessly-whipped, Tory MPs roared and banged the floor, drowning out both the sound of the baying wolves now waiting for the prime minister’s one time closest media confidante and the grinding of the brakes on Miliband’s week of momentum.
But the Labour leader, flushed with recent success, turned his confident stride turned into a less convincing strut.
Shattering Cameron’s attempts to create a sense of all-in-this-togetherness, Miliband demanded that the prime minister take action against his chief-of-staff Ed Llewellyn, the man who was told about the shadier aspects of Coulson's News of the World CV.
"I can sit here and ask questions about Tom Baldwin" Cameron snapped back, name-checking Miliband's very own News International alumnus turned party spinner.
Conveniently enough Baldwin was nowhere to be seen today, but Tory MPs, at last gasping through the fug of cooperation, cheered in delight. Miliband’s moment had passed.
John Bercow, the speaker, shouted himself hoarse as he tried to keep them quiet, his voice cracking like a nervous adolescent as he threatened the enthusiastic children’s minister Tim Loughton with ejection from the chamber, but the partisan noises from the backbenches had by now seeped into the leader’s exchange.
"He just doesn’t get it. He should apologies for a catastrophic error of judgment" Miliband shouted over the din, but Cameron had done enough. After all, until the police have their say on Coulson, there is little more he can do.
Instead, he replied, it was the Labour leader who didn’t get it: the public wanted an end to corruption and having promised an inquiry into recent events Cameron boasted how “that is the leadership I'm determined to provide."
But he has some way to go.
The prime minister’s well-mannered approach may have checked Miliband’s victory march, but the Labour leader’s guns were not entirely spiked, as the ugly spat over Coulson proved.
He is back in the spotlight, and seems to be in tune too, but there is no hiding the fact that David Cameron is moving gingerly.
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