Malcolm Barker: Let's hope Mr Cameron has the privilege of common sense

David Cameron is good at it. After coming down from Oxford with a first-class honours degree, he took a job with the TV company Carlton. His boss, the businessman Michael Green, made him head of corporate communications, and thought him wonderful, "board material".

His talent for obfuscation, a qualification for the job, was recognised by journalists. Jeff Randall, a Fleet Street business editor, commented that he never gave a straight answer when dissemblance was a plausible alternative.

In the world of public relations this is a high accolade, and by no means debars David Cameron from being a brilliant occupant of 10 Downing Street. He will be the 13th Prime Minister of the Queen's long reign, and all his predecessors had experience of spinning or being spun.

Even Sir Winston Churchill was not immune. His resounding oratory infused the nation with steely determination when all seemed lost in 1940, spinning at its most justified and triumphant. Towards the end of his peace-time premiership (1951-1955) certain of his senior colleagues thought he should stand down in favour of Anthony Eden and attempted to spin the old man

out of office

The reporting staff at the Yorkshire Evening Post became aware of this in a peculiar way. At that time, the paper had a London Editor, William Sternberg, who covered Westminster, and was reckoned to be well informed. There was excitement one day when he came up with a scoop that was displayed across the front page: Winston to retire.

Nothing happened. A month or so later, Bill came on even more excited. The Prime Minister certainly intended to stand down. Again, a splash, and again nothing from Sir Winston.

Reporters in Leeds began to think Bill was making it up. In fact, he was being fed misinformation by senior Conservatives who hoped public opinion favourably sympathetic to his retirement would persuade the old man to stand down. It did not work, and Sir Winston returned to the back benches in his own good time.

In mid-August, 1961, a call came to newsdesks suggesting that it would be worthwhile sending a photographer and reporter to a rendezvous on the moors above Wharfedale. Harry Fletcher, a Yorkshire Evening Post photographer, and his colleague arrived to find a mill of newspapermen and a grouse-shooting party. Somewhat apart, sitting cross-legged in the heather, was the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, smoking his pipe and with a flat cap on his head. He had nothing to say, but posed amiably for the cameras. Nearby was a telephone at the end of a land line which the newspapermen were told offered Mr Macmillan immediate contact with 10 Downing Street.

The dissemination of news about this link was the object of the exercise. Thus the nation was assured that although he might be potting grouse with his Purdy, the Prime Minister was still in touch with what he was reputed to call "Events, dear boy, events". As it happened, the point made was important. In August, 1961, a few days after the Glorious 12th, the Berlin Wall went up.

Harold Wilson was careful with his image. During a visit to Huddersfield, he smoked a pipe and drank draught beer. That same evening, at a dinner in Leeds, he was puffing cigars and drinking brandy. John Edwards, then Editor of the Yorkshire Post, was at both events and remarked later that for Harold a day was a long time in politics. The pair had engaged in a lively discussion while the port was circulating, during which a jug of celery was somehow tipped over on the table.

Soon after becoming leader of her party, Margaret Thatcher appeared at a reception in Leeds, and was thought frumpish and rather shrill. She soon underwent a makeover, and became a very smart woman, immaculately groomed, and with an incisive tone to her voice.

Thus the public perception of politicians has always been regarded as important, and spinning was not an innovation of the Blair years.

Mr Cameron will certainly know best how to present himself, but his ability to withstand the pressures of the highest office will soon be tested. We may not be clear where his policies will take us, but we do know from whence he came: a well-to-do family, Eton, Oxford where he was invited to join the Bullingdon Club, the Conservative Research department, seven years with Mr Green at Carlton, then, in 2001, election as MP for Witney.

He appears not to be altogether happy with this curriculum vitae. For example, questioned by Andrew Marr for the BBC about his appearance in a photograph of members of the Bullingdon Club, he said he was "desperately embarrassed about it". Maybe his regret derives from the way opponents like John Prescott declare that his Bullingdon membership is evidence of his belonging to something much wider, an elite upper class.

Fair-minded folk will see this as irrelevant. There is no spinning away a privileged background. What we ask is that he brings clarity and common sense to Government, and that Her Majesty finds an inspired leader in her 13th Prime Minister.

n Tomorrow: What David Cameron can do for sport.

Malcolm Barker is a former editor of the Yorkshire Evening Post.