David cameron

When David Cameron started contemplating life after Downing Street, he settled quite quickly on a model of what it should look like. He would stay on the backbenches, providing advice and wisdom to whoever came after him, earn a little bit of extra money while still working as an MP, and continue in public service with charities and others. In 2016, he outlined his approach to me as we sat in a cafe in Witney, and I wrote it up in my book, Why We Get The Wrong Politicians: He mourned the number of former ministers who had departed at the 2015 election, and suggested that you could do other

‘Keir today, gone tomorrow.’ The whisper before Easter was that Labour’s troubled leader might not survive until the next election but the spectre of Tory sleaze – which felled John Major’s government – has come to the rescue. Sir Keir started PMQs by alluding to David Cameron’s freelance activities for Greensill Capital. ‘Are the current lobbying rules fit for purpose?’ he asked. Boris tried the ‘nothing to see here’ approach. He wants to smother the controversy by appointing a legal sleuth with a spectacularly dull name, Nigel Boardman, whose findings will be delivered in June. So for the next two months the PM can happily refer every question to ‘the

To paraphrase the old adage, truth can still be pulling on its boots when a misconception is already half way around the world. This is what has happened over the David Cameron/ Greensill affair. There is only one antidote to that: the facts. David Cameron’s statement sets these out clearly. There is to be an inquiry, which is likely to recommend procedural changes. It should also become clear that Cameron has nothing to fear from what has happened. To see why, it’s first worth delving back to 2010, when the Tories had just returned to office. In the early days of the coalition government, there was much discussion about the future of the civil service. Francis Maude, the

Say what you like about David Cameron, the man never stops trying to exceed expectations. I once thought that he’d never do anything sadder than giving his wife’s stylist an honour then running away from parliament like a child. Then he proved me wrong by publishing his memoirs. And now, demonstrating his unstinting commitment to the cause of his own humiliation, he has reinvented himself as a shoddy lobbyist. When he naffed off after making a horlicks of the referendum, Cameron warbled the usual shiny words about duty to the nation. It turns out he meant it: in these dark times, we all need a laugh, so we should thank

When Michael Gove was welcomed back into government this year and appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, some wondered if Boris Johnson was really wise to trust his old nemesis with the serious business of government. After all, Gove both ran against the PM in the recent leadership contest and, infamously, stabbed him in the back after the Brexit vote in 2016. But if Boris is looking for inspiration about how to handle his colleague, it appears that there are other prime ministers who might be able to help. David Cameron for one apparently distrusted Gove so much he developed his own protocol for managing his Chief Whip. In

David Cameron’s autobiography was supposed to be a chance for the former prime minister to settle scores and have his say on his time in office. But Cameron’s book is also something that he didn’t intend: a convincing case for Brexit. ‘For the Record’ is littered with examples of EU officials and council members undermining UK interests and reneging on promises. Here are 13 times David Cameron’s book makes the case for Brexit: Jean-Claude Juncker frustrating British interests:  ‘Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg, was particularly dismissive of British concerns. As a finance minister, he’d been there at Maastricht when the journey to monetary union began. He’d been there when we

One of the downsides of all this snarking at David Cameron over Brexit is that the rest of his legacy is getting away relatively snark-free. Fraser Nelson has resumed his valiant campaign to repackage the Cameron years as a well-spring of progressive Toryism, specifically in job creation, the expansion of academies, and shifting the tax burden. This effort has always struck me as iffy. For one thing, shouldn’t conservatives want the credit for economic dynamism, school choice and tax cuts to go to conservatism, rather than concede them as ‘progressive’ outcomes which conservatives have achieved in spite of their unfortunate philosophy? But Fraser isn’t really a conservative. He’s a democratic optimist,