I’ve predicted for months, and it’s now been confirmed by what the Independent describes as ‘senior party insiders’, that top Tory spinner, Andy Coulson will not be going to Downing Street if/when David Cameron wins the General Election next spring.

Although there are no complaints about his performance, it was always going to be too ticklish to harbour the man who was in charge of the reporters at the News of the World who were jailed for shamelessly raiding the voicemails of the princes and their staff at Clarence House, particularly as  Cameron will be going round to brief Her Majesty at Buckingham Palace each week.

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It’s not surprising, I suppose, that the furore over Damian McBride’s emailed smear plans, sent from No10 should evoke a hard-hitting response from Charlie Whelan, Gordon Brown’s own spinner during the ’90s. Seeking an Achilles Heel among the Tory image makers, Whelan homed in on the unwholesome presence at Central Office of their current spinner-in-chief and media wizard, a man very accustomed to propagating nasty stories about well-known persons, Murdoch golden boy and former editor of the News of the Screws, Andy Coulson, who, Whelan reminded Patrick Wintour in the Guardian, had been forced to resign after denying all knowledge of a Screws Private Investigator tapping into Clarence House mobile voicemails. I imagine David Cameron is thinking hard about retaining the services of a man who might find the temptation to slip back into his old habits too hard to resist,  potentially causing Cameron as much embarrassment and “Sorry” saying as Brown the Frown has undergone this week. They say Rebekah Wade’s shortly to clamber a few more rungs up the News International ladder. If I were Andy, I’d get into her slipstream now, ready to replace her shapely bum on the editor’s chair at the Sun.

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