In 2021 we bid many things farewell: Philip Green’s retail empire, England’s Euro chances and Donald Trump’s presidency. And now, joining them on the ash heap of history, appears to be David Cameron’s short-lived career as a lobbyist, after months of damning revelations about his multi-million pound efforts for Greensill Capital. After the conclusion of the Brexit wars, the onetime Prime Minister might have harboured some hopes of a retrospective rehabilitation but the collapse of Greensill and the release of the Old Etonian’s accompanying cringe-worthy texts has put paid to that.
It’s not just Greensill that suffered in 2021 of course: since leaving office Cameron has acquired something of the reverse Midas touch. Last month he was forced to quit his role at the software company Afiniti after a 23-year-old former employee accused the firm’s multimillionaire founder of sexual assault. It ends a rotten year for Cameron, whose lowest point was probably when MPs on the Treasury select committee concluded that his persistent lobbying to have Greensill included in a government-backed Covid loans scheme had ‘demeaned’ the position of the prime minister and left his ‘reputation in tatters.
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