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Coulson set for Tory communications role

By Press Gazette

Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson is expected be named director of communications for the Conservative Party.

Coulson resigned from the News of the World in January after royal editor Clive Goodman was sentenced to four months for intercepting royal phone message.

Spectator political editor Fraser Nelson said on his blog: ‘No one would have thought the party would get someone of his calibre.

‘Last summer Andy hired me as a columnist to the News of the World. I’d meet him every Friday before writing the column, and soon found how sharp he was. From tax burden figures to troop deployments, he seemed to know everything – and, crucially, how to present it… The Tory recruitment of an Alastair Campbell figure would itself be a turning point.”

After his resignation, Coulson was replaced by Colin Myler who issued his journalist a new set of editorial guidelines in response to the scandal.

Coulson joined the NoW in January 2003 after Rebekah Wade left to become editor of The Sun.

Under his editorship, the paper was named Newspaper of the year in 2005 and won Scoop of the Year in 2004 for reporting David Beckham’s alleged affair with Rebecca Loos.

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The story was broken this morning on Iain Dale’s blog, and was confirmed this afternoon by the Conservative Party.

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