Tom Richmond: Cameron looks like a Prime Minister, but now let's see a little bit less of him

ONE of the biggest compliments that can be made about David Cameron, six months after he came to power, is that he looks – and sounds – Prime Ministerial.

The callow youth who became Tory leader five years ago has metamorphosed into an international statesman who is speaking up for Britain on the global stage.

The responsibility of high office, and all that this entails, has seen Cameron grow in stature – unlike some of his Cabinet colleagues who are still learning how to wield power wisely.

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He has not been hindered by the novelty of the first peacetime coalition since the war. Even without the need to make spending cuts of historic proportions, he finds himself presiding over one of the most reformist governments for years.

The Tories and Lib Dems are rolling back the state and devolving power to the local communities while their welfare reforms – namely that the out-of-work should contribute to society until they find employment – are potentially the most radical since the Beveridge report seven decades ago.

If they work – and the test will be the successful execution of Iain Duncan Smith's reforms – then Cameron's place in history will be secure. He will be remembered, provided the economy picks up, for restoring conservative values, whether it be fiscal responsibility or the empowerment of individual families through the Big Society.

The problem is that Cameron's "vanity" is threatening to detract from the considerable progress that his government is making on a range of issues.

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Take last week. Three news stories should have dominated – Cameron's balancing act in China between improved trade links and human rights; the radical audacity of the welfare shake-up, and its attempt to end a culture of freeloading that has become endemic on some estates, and the wanton destruction caused by those student rioters who, frankly, demonstrated why they should be paying, in future, for their tuition fees.

Yet, as the weeks pass by, I suspect the most lasting impression of November 2011 will be Cameron's misguided decision – at the height of the furore over his coalition's cuts – to add a personal photographer to the Downing Street payroll.

I actually think that Downing Street should have its own cameraman to record history in the making for posterity, or photograph Cameron with guests. If people want to buy a picture, they can then do so. It also stops politicians wasting time waiting for well-meaning guests to try and switch on their digital camera.

However, it is unjustifable in these times – and the only solution for Cameron is to take a snap decision – if you'll excuse the pun – dispense with his photographer before he causes any further embarrassment.

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Frankly, the public don't want a daily diet of pictures of their PM hobnobbing with the great and good, or trying to prove his masculinity by running alongside Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero at the G20 summit in South Korea as a precursor to the 2018 World Cup vote – 10 years of Tony Blair in "action man" mode was more than enough of such posing (and even he did not have a personal photographer).

As Harold Macmillan observed 40 years ago, and as Douglas Hurd, the former Foreign Secretary, implored during a statesmanlike speech in Leeds shortly before Blair was replaced by Brown, Prime Ministers should only be seen, and heard, when they have an important contribution to make. By becoming obsessed with image, Hurd argued, they devalue the meaning and significance of those speeches that matter far more than those events that appear to be staged for PR purposes.

Given that Hurd previously represented Witney, the seat that Cameron now holds, it is a lesson than the PM needs to learn before he becomes "Blair's heir" when it comes to self-promotion.

He had an early warning and has only, now, been able to live down the embarrassment of cycling to Westminster while officials transported his official papers by car.

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Such stunts usually unravel – and Cameron's obsession with image is just as likely, at present, to prove to be his downfall than any of the very controversial policies that he's presently steering through Parliament as he battles to restore the nation's finances.

Take the damaging revelation that Cameron has handed out 26 civil service jobs without publicly advertising them. As well as photographer Andrew Parsons who is becoming more high-profile than some ministers, the PM has appointed a web guru, filmmaker and policy adviser to key Government posts on short-term contracts, allowing the coalition to circumvent traditional recruitment rules.

This hubris must stop. Having committed his Government to public sector cuts in the region of 25 year cent, Cameron can't expect the public to pick up the tab for his personal bag-carriers and such like. He has to lead by example, and that means a smaller personal entourage on his part – even if it means his wife, Samantha, curtailing her public appearances that have become like fashion shoots.

The regret is that Cameron, after six months in office, actually has a positive narrative, including the Big Society's themes, to articulate to the nation if he was prepared to allow the policy debate, and not his vanity, to become the substantive issue of the day.

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In future, I, for one, will be a lot happier if David Cameron is less visible. It would mean that he was busy leading the country out of the economic mire rather than indulging himself in the frivolous and the banal that became the raison d'tre of Tony Blair.