The Queen carries out hundreds of engagements with the minimum of fuss and is hugely popular, but former PR man Dave has a radically different approach.
Despite harping on about transparency in government, he’s embarked on a carefully constructed branding campaign, airbrushing out anything that doesn’t fit the image of an ordinary family man who understands our problems. Who watches The X Factor. Who changes the baby’s nappies.
David Cameron's appointments - when there's supposed to be a Whitehall employment freeze - are a bit rich coming from the party that wants to slash some services by 40 per cent
There’s someone called head of e-media on a salary of £75,000 a year, to write on message blogs and Twitter feeds. A personal photographer earns £35,000 a year to document Dave at home and on the road.
The Prime Minister was elected to run Britain, not front an advertising campaign for butter. Calling a woman a special adviser and paying her £60,000 a year for a four-day week to sort out your wife’s diary and help choose her clothes is another duff decision, especially when you’ve told thousands of mums child benefit is to be cut.
These appointments — when there’s supposed to be a Whitehall employment freeze — are a bit rich coming from the party that wants to slash some services by 40 per cent.
So it seems that the Tories are just as obsessed with presentation as Labour were — even employing a former GMTV producer to ensure Dave gets the right coverage in women’s magazines. Soft, fluffy, female-friendly.
I blame those gorgeous pictures of Jack Kennedy in the Oval Office. Ever since then, politicians have wanted a bit of that golden era to rub off on them.
Tony Blair threw parties for pop stars and was tickled pink to be photographed chatting to Oasis and Bono. A failed rock musician, he groomed a presidential style, giving voters the impression we were hitting above our weight on the international stage. In reality, we were heading for economic disaster.
President Obama has big problems: awful popularity ratings and a flop in the mid-term elections. What better time for a Slumdog Millionaire moment? On his expensive visit to Mumbai, the President booked rooms in the swankiest hotels, brought in warships to patrol the seas and sniffer dogs who ate specially imported meals.
Millions of Americans are out of work while their President swans around Mumbai in an armoured car. Michelle couldn’t wait to get her shoes off and try Bollywood dancing with hand-picked orphans for the benefit of the world’s press.
When she left, we were told Mrs Obama gave each child a bag of stationery and a packet of M&M sweets. Very useful!
Obama could have achieved the same results by staying at home using Skype and the money saved could have re-housed the slum dwellers and given them clean water — but that doesn’t deliver the right uplifting pictures, does it?
Later this week, Mr Cameron visits China for two days, en route to the G20 summit in Korea. I doubt he will ask his hosts why the wife of imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo is under house arrest.
I doubt Mr Cameron will ask why the Chinese want to demolish the studio of Ai Wei Wei, one of their leading artists, whose work is attracting thousands of visitors to the Tate Modern and who co-designed the Olympic stadium in Beijing.
You can be sure that Mr Cameron’s photographer will be available to record some suitably pretentious pictures of the Prime Minister looking serious and statesman-like, while his blog and Twitter kids will be constructing a tidal wave of trivia at every step.
As for human rights, they don’t make sexy pictures. Politics has become a vanity project.
Emma's style lacks magic
Emma Watson is 20 and slender, but - hang on! - she's no fashion icon. She's just a clothes horse
In the accompanying interview, Emma is touted as the new fashion icon. Hang on — this girl is just 20 and very slender.
I thought fashion editors were keen to promote real women with curves. Only the other day they were extolling older women, citing luxury brands using girls in their late 30s and 40s for advertising campaigns.
Emma Watson has banked about £20 million from playing Hermione Granger and need never work again. She’s a smart girl, studying at university in America. She can afford the clothes she’s modelling, but 99 per cent of her generation can’t.
As for being a fashion icon — I see little evidence.
Walk around any of our cities and you see loads of stylish girls her age, dressing in stuff from jumble sales and charity shops.
Emma is just a clothes horse.
Rumble in the celeb Jungle
What a cracking line-up for the new series of I’m A Celeb.An irritating chef (Ainsley Harriott). A posh actor (Nigel Havers). A very annoying ex-MP (Lembit Opik) and a mouthy gay icon (Boy George).
Notice I haven’t even bothered to mention any women? What chance do they have of getting a word in edgeways with that lot?
I’m heading out to Australia in a couple of weeks to appear on the ITV2 coverage of the series.
When I went last year it was 35 degrees on the set — I found there was no point in wearing any make-up because it slithered off in ten minutes.
So how will George manage?
I can’t wait for him to cut Opik down to size.
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Linda Pizzuti is being touted as the new face of Wag World, along with Christine Bleakley.
Both women are beautiful, well-dressed and highly intelligent. (Not that Christine’s current gig on ITV’s Daybreak allows her high IQ to shine.)
Linda Pizzuti, 31, is the wife of new Liverpool owner John W Henry, 61. I wonder what exactly attracted Linda to billionaire John?
Linda met Mr Henry in a bar in 2008. She is 31 and he’s a very plain 61.
To paraphrase the classic Mrs Merton line — I wonder what exactly attracted Linda to billionaire John?
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Some airports charge £5 to ‘fast-track’ the security system, but is there any logic or consistency to what you are asked to remove during the screening process?
I’ve just returned from the Caribbean. On the way out, at Gatwick, I had to remove my metal studded belt and shoes and submit to an intense body screening by an unsmiling harpy with a bleeping wand.
The rivets in my jeans made it go haywire. As bras have wires in them, I bet they’ll be asking us to take them off next and turn up in nappies or Babygros.
Returning a few days later, I had my watch removed and X-rayed, but not my belt.
When I sat down in the lounge, I found that a large aerosol can of insect repellent was still in my rucksack.
It’s bonkers.
I rarely agree with Michael O’Leary, the mouthy owner of Ryanair, but he’s right about excessive and irrelevant security checks.
