India’s external affairs minister arrived in London expecting to meet his opposite number James Cleverly, only to find himself shaking hands with David Cameron, an ex-prime minister abruptly returned to the fray at the Foreign Office in the great Rishi restitution.
Sunak did however pre-empt the Braverman eruption. A week ago he approached the man who had supported his breakthrough as an ambitious arrival in the 2015 intake. Sunak had a wider reshuffle (and the dropping of Braverman) in mind.
It might have been wiser to expedite this. Either way, the top ranks of Cabinet now resemble an ABBA Voyage-style tribute to the final days of the Cameron ascendancy before the mighty 2016 referendum crash. No one could accuse Cameron of an opportunistic return to a buoyant party; it’s probably a doomed quest, in which the only prize is mitigating disastrous levels of Tory seat loss and the prospect of doing some good in fraught international circumstances.
So is this comeback a crazy idea? Knowing Cameron for more than three decades in various incarnations, I can guess why Sunak wants him around. The Prime Minister is a proud man and, while limited in his range of political skills, pretty clear-eyed about the overall situation for his party. He is also overwhelmed by the mixture of external events from Israel/Gaza to Ukraine and watchful dealings with the Biden administration over both, while aware that he needs to focus more clearly on the domestic election pitch with more streams of experienced and supportive advice.
It is easy to count his errors, but there is still cachet to being an ex-PM and Cameron will deploy it
Cameron, notwithstanding a polished presentation, is something of a desperado too. His post-PM life has been a mixture of miscalculations in the Lex Greensill tie-up with a flawed business that went bust, and teaching stints in the Middle East and Asia (with trailing wires leading to China). Putting aside the joy of high-earning gigs, he is most animated about things that truly interest him — the chairmanship of the Atlantic Partnership and a commitment to Alzheimer’s research and awareness.
Like many ex-leaders, he wants most to still be needed. Tony Blair looks similarly keen on a role bringing together factions behind the warring sides in the Middle East.
Watch politicians forge their way against the odds to leadership and you glean why they never entirely give up hope that the Downing Street switchboard will flash up on their phone. I remember a dinner about a year before Cameron became leader in 2005.
David — as he was before the matey “Dave” thing was minted — asked the right questions, in the same way that Blair inverted many assumptions about the Labour Party. How come, if the Labour government has failed on so many deliverables, people don’t turn to us more readily? Why do my kids hate me if I vote Tory? How to deal with Eurosceptic instincts, some of which he shared, without deepening internal schisms and and losing sway with the continent? Plus ça change.
The ensuing coalition with Nick Clegg was forged because he could talk across political and dispositional divides. But 2015 also witnessed the splinter of ice in the soul, which saw Lib Dem allies destroyed by the strains of the alliance — and Cameron sail on to a majority of his own. He never stopped fearing defeat, which led to the referendum miscalculation. And that reminds us that he did not intend to quit politics — rather it quit him, which makes it doubly flattering to be asked back.
In terms of foreign engagement and contacts, he can present himself in Europe as a Remainer penitent, and leverage connections to India in pursuit of a trade deal — a personal quest of Sunak’s. His pro-China engagement stance will enrage Tory hawks, but again, it is aligned with Sunak’s position that all-out hostility to Beijing will not benefit the UK.
He won’t be the absolute favourite visitor in Kyiv, having soft-pedalled on the 2014 Crimea incursion and handed over European leadership on the response to a Franco-German compromise which failed. It is easy to count the errors, but there is still cachet to being an ex-PM and Cameron will deploy it with gusto.
The questions which start Westminster brushfires have become harsher, more muddled and charged with negative emotions than the halcyon era post-Iraq war and pre-Brexit. But there’s a twinge of duty, mixed with noblesse oblige and thrill of walking back into one of the great offices of state that is a fatal attraction. It is a comeback that confounds enemies, Right and Left, and has everyone talking about you. No doubt that feels pretty good too.
