Why I prefer a PM who can 'chillax'

Can the prime minister function effectively if he does nothing but work?

Max Hastings once told me about a lunch he'd had with Ken Clarke when Clarke was Chancellor. Clarke was late and Max took a call in the restaurant from a flustered Treasury official desperate to get hold of his boss. Where was he? Did Max know? No he didn't. It turned out that Clarke was in his own car, driving himself to lunch, listening to jazz and with his mobile switched off.

Hastings uses the story to illustrate how human Clarke is, and I thought of it this week when reading about David Cameron's capacity to chill out and enjoy himself or chillax' as we call it now. The reports about this, in a new biography of Cameron by Francis Elliott and James Hanning, serialised in The Times, didn't please everyone.

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