PR Week Echo Columns

The appointment of Andy Coulson, former News of the World Editor, as the Conservative Party's Director of Communications rocked Westminster Village, though no one was quite sure what it would mean for the Tories: "puzzling" (Daily Mail, 4/6), "the mind boggles at what he will do for the Tories" (Daily Telegraph, 2/6), "what signal is sent by hiring the man who sold salacious celebs'n'sex journalism?" (Independent, 3/6).

Most commentators felt that, after the recent grammar school debacle, the Tories desperately need a defter touch in media / policy matters, and thus interpreted Coulson's appointment as the Tories' answer to Labour's former spinmeister, Alastair Campbell. The problem there, they pointed out, was as with Campbell himself, Coulson had broken the first law of spin-doctoring by becoming 'the story'. His involvement in the Royal phone tapping incident was well documented, and according to Max Clifford, would come back to "haunt the Tories" (Sunday Herald, 3/6).

Yet few denied Coulson's experience and contacts, particularly with Murdoch's News International, which will be very useful to Cameron's self-professed aim of being the 'true heir to Blair'. Whether Coulson will indeed go "from red-top sinner to election winner" (Independent, 3/6) will be the poacher-turned-gamekeeper's greatest test, and one his former Fleet Street colleagues will be watching very closely.