Compared to some of the political surprises of this summer, David Cameron’s decision to stand down as an MP takes rather less getting used to. While most of us bought the initial idea that he would keep his nose clean and serve as loyal backbencher for a while – and he has told friends he’d like to stay in public life – the news that he is going to spend more time with his box sets is hardly earth-shattering.
After all, his protestation that he would stay on came in an interview shortly after the referendum, when the privilege of serving the people of Witney must have been one of the least momentous things on his mind. Besides, he only said it was his “intention”, a weasel term which offers a licence to change his mind.
Political death can rarely have felt more sudden. On holiday this summer, for example, Cameron found himself constantly disappointed by his previously ever-buzzing phone.
And the Tory party has been typically brisk and brutal. The defining feature of the May government is that it is not the Cameron government, whatever the latter may have achieved. There is no talk of “Cameronism” enduring on the back benches. There has been polite but minimal speculation as to what he might do next. The man who crashed the Titanic was best forgotten, or so Westminster seemed to think.
But the job market thought otherwise.
In the weeks after he resigned as PM, I understand reliably, Cameron received “a flood of job offers”, all of which he turned down.
A more than passable writer, he decided to write a book about his premiership. But the political memoir market is not what it was, and he was told to write it as soon as possible to maximise the advance, and before public interest faded. Though he has not confirmed that the project is underway, he is now writing busily, but regrets not keeping a diary of his time in Downing Street.
Whether a former prime minister can maximise his earnings as an author of a memoir while sitting on the backbenches is likely to be the subject of speculation. A publisher would presumably never actually use the phrase “quick and dirty”, but will at least want a warts and all account, and the demands of propriety could well have constrained Cameron. He regards the grammar school policy as a mistake on a number of counts, but he is too implicitly well-mannered to want to embarrass Theresa May (and learned at his mother’s knee that Tory leaders are owed total public loyalty).
It is no secret that he wanted George Osborne to succeed him, and considers May pedestrian by comparison. And who can forget the faint praise moment in his 2015 party conference speech, when his only mention of her was when he applauded the ministers who have kept the UK “safe at home and abroad: Justine Greening, Michael Fallon, Philip Hammond and Theresa May”. His remark yesterday – “I think she could be a strong Prime Minister for our country” – was scarcely more resounding. Despite himself, any praise he uttered would sound phony.
Perhaps more tellingly, one of the aims of the disastrous EU referendum was to see off what he regards as the Eurosceptic nutters on the backbenches. Sitting alongside them as he trousered a hefty serialisation fee might not be quite comme il faut, even if he did manage a degree of circumspection. And if he tells it as he sees it …
Put it this way, what was to be gained by staying? It is not as if one has the feeling of “so much left undone”.
John Major’s and Harold Wilson’s premierships were eventually subject to a wind of revisionism, but it took years. Why would Cameron, humiliated by the referendum defeat and with millions fuming at his perceived high-handedness, wait for that, and why do so in Witney, lovely though it is? Why encourage an army of journalists, asking him to pass judgment on every step of Theresa May’s tenure? Why clock in at the Palace of Westminster and strain to support a leader about whose suitability to perform the near-impossible job of being PM he is sceptical? And, perhaps most importantly, why potter along on an MP’s salary of £74,000 a year, being required to declare his other earnings, when, for example, Bill Clinton gets paid £400,000 for an hour’s public speaking?
If Cameron were to cash his chips, his friends would not be surprised (and neither would his foes, judging by this morning’s papers). His father-in-law Sir Reggie Sheffield has helped the Camerons balance the books, and he may feel an obligation there, and presumably there is ground to be made up in his earnings if he is, as expected, to send one or more of his children to private schools. His wife Samantha’s ambitions to launch a fashion label have been on hold. They are likely to be highly lucrative in the medium to long term, but a hefty cash injection into the family’s coffers would not go amiss. “Dave really loves fairly basic things like gardening and bucket and spade holidays,” says a friend, “but there has always been an assumption of money there, and moneyed people seem to be attracted to him.”
So will we see Cameron indulging in an indecorous dash for cash? I think not. While he will certainly feel the need to sustain a lifestyle fitting that of a former PM, the public service gene lives on. He is not yet 50, and has spoken passionately in private about campaigning against corruption in developing countries, while his much derided concern for the environment is also likely to make a call on his conscience. Do not be surprised if he sets up a charity – or maybe works for an existing large NGO with global reach – but one which allows him to boost his earnings at the same time.