David Cameron survives the Leveson Inquiry but his harshest test is still to come What Cameron surely achieved on Thursday was to scotch once and for all the theory of a grand bargain - implicit or explicit - between Prime Minister and media tycoon. Andy Coulson probably regrets ever going into politics. But, as Cameron argued persuasively, he was not hired on secondment from Wapping but as an ex-tabloid editor who was available for work. Nobody seriously disputes that he did an excellent job as communications director in opposition and in government. As for Hunt's fitness to handle the BSkyB bid after Vince Cable inadvertently excluded himself in December 2010: Cameron was at his most impressive, as he showed that the Government had both acted speedily and followed procedure meticulously when seeking legal and official advice on the Culture Secretary's suitability for the quasi-judicial task. Brick by brick, the conspiracy theory is being dismantled, and will eventually crumble. Which brings us, many still sniggering, to Rebekah Brooks's text sent to Cameron on October 7 2009: Downing Street is making no attempt to conceal the collective squirm that coursed through the building as its content was read out in court with ill-restrained relish by Mr Jay. And who can blame him? From the reference to charming OEs and flattery of the PM's wife, to the toe-curling "Yes he Cam!," the message was a belter, a reminder of what texting does to intelligent people and (let's admit it) a memento mori to anyone who has sent a text longer than "c u l8er," ever. There but for the grace of Orange... This single SMS has already launched a noisy school of textual analysis, much effort having been expended on the phrase "country supper." Who will play the role of Nancy Mitford 2.0, explaining in a new edition of Noblesse Oblige for the 21st century what this means? Is a "country supper" different from a "rural dinner" or a "bucolic tea"? I think we should be told. The text will not be forgotten because it is funny: funny things linger in the memory, however hazily. And its worst feature by far is its disfigurement of Cameron's most important slogan. When Mrs Brooks looks forward to Cameron's conference speech, she says "professionally we're definitely in this together!" The damage that this does is not to suggest a secret Murdoch-Tory plan but something much worse. It takes the defining Cameroon mantra - "we're all in this together" - and ruptures its meaning. More than any other, the slogan was always intended to be a declaration of shared adversity, a statement of national mission, and a means of communicating that the better-off would not shirk their responsibility to make sacrifices. "We're all in this together" signalled that the bank levy, the removal of child benefit from higher-rate taxpayers (albeit modified in the Budget), and the fierce pursuit of wealthy tax evaders were no less important to the Coalition than cuts to the welfare bill, painful savings across Whitehall to reduce the deficit, and tough reform of public sector pensions. The Brooks text takes a slogan of classless unity and makes it a private assertion of cliquishness. The idea of a national community is supplanted by the embrace of a single corporation. A slogan for a country becomes an in-joke for a gang. More than his more suburban colleagues, a man of David Cameron's background cannot afford to be seen as a member of a gang, an elite, a faction, a charmed circle, a Bullingdon group portrait. The idea of a "Chipping Norton set" loosely located around his constituency home has always been politically adhesive, precisely because of the lazy suspicion that politicians with a pedigree like Cameron's transact all their important business away from the spotlight - over "country supper," perhaps. Tony Blair was damaged by the accusation that he led a "sofa government." Mrs Brooks has sparked the fear that Cameron is running an Aga administration. A politician's strengths are usually his weaknesses, too: in this Prime Minister's case, equanimity, impermeability and a genial disinclination to be ruffled. Those were the qualities that met the spirit of the age in December 2005, when Cameron was elected leader. They were the qualities that saw him through his viva voce on Thursday, more or less unscathed. But in Mexico, and the months and years to come, he will need other, flintier talents. Though it must make recommendations, Leveson already feels like a requiem to another world. In Los Cabos this week - and Athens, Madrid and elsewhere - the jagged landscape of a new and angrier world will be lit up by lightning. Cameron's true trial still lies ahead.