Cameron under fire for sleeping on the job

Whilst Clegg and Miliband were burning the midnight oil, staying up until 2.30am to thrash out a deal on the Leveson proposals, the Tories were represented by…the PM, Maria Miller, Oliver Letwin. David Cameron was, it seems, asleep on the job, whilst the other party leaders were hard at work.

That might be fine if the Tories had sent someone into the negotiations someone that their MPs trust, but as Iain Dale said earlier today “Tory MPs don’t trust Oliver Letwin’s backbone one iota…not someone to go into the jungle with.” Tory MP Tracey Crouch tweeted this morning “I hate going to bed a loyalist and then wake up a rebel #pressregulation“, leaving us in no doubt that some on the Tory benches think they’ve been sold out by Cameron’s “dab” of statutory regulation. As we noted earlier today – you can’t have a “dab” of statute. If Cameron wasn’t there, it’s not surprising he doesn’t know what was agreed.

So it’s unsurprising to see the FT asking – “Was Cameron asleep while the press deal was done?”. It was certainly the talk of the Commons when I was in there earlier…