Midway through his final cabinet meeting, David Cameron realised — with some horror — that it had turned into a political wake. Theresa May had just lavished praise upon him, and his eyes had moistened. Then it was George Osborne’s turn: the Chancellor was a bit more humorous, but no less affectionate: ‘Being English, David, you’ll hate all this praise,’ he said. ‘You’re quite right,’ Cameron replied. ‘I am English, and I don’t much like it.’ Fearing that every member of his government was about to deliver an elegy, he brought the meeting to an abrupt end.
Defining Cameron’s legacy is an important task for the Conservatives if they are to build on it. The current implosion of the Labour party, for example, can be traced to Labour’s failure to manage the transition after Tony Blair’s premiership ended. When Gordon Brown entered No. 10, he set about dismantling the Blair legacy of public sector reform. His vindictive destruction of any serious New Labour achievement, in an attempt to make his own mark, ended up hollowing out his party. It led first to the promotion of the vacuous Ed Miliband and next to Jeremy Corbyn — and to the chaos Labour is now in.
Theresa May had no rivalry with David Cameron, so the Prime Minister has no need to take a wrecking ball to her predecessor’s achievements. But if the Conservatives are to build on these, they must first identify them. Mr Cameron, like all politicians, cannot be trusted to do it himself. Like all former prime ministers, he wants to be remembered for his pet projects. But also like all prime ministers, his greatest successes emerged from policies he didn’t expect to be quite so effective — while many of his grandest ideas ran aground.
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