In July 2016, David Cameron signed off as PM with the self-deprecatory quip “I was the future once”. Now Rishi Sunak has brought him back as Foreign Secretary, but does the move signal inspiration or desperation?
Heading into an election next year, the current Prime Minister has grasped at the narrative-grabbing appointment as he bids to ensure a continued future for Conservative government after 13 years in power.
The reshuffle was prompted by Suella Braverman exhausting Mr Sunak’s patience with one provocative statement too many.
Mr Cameron spent years in opposition detoxifying the Tory brand. For her critics, the sacked Home Secretary had been going out of her way to retoxify it with her attacks on migrants, the homeless and even the Met police.
“Today's return of David Cameron is a thoroughly positive move, which I think will reassure people that, you know, there are still some remnants of the Conservative Party that won a majority in 2015 are still there," former minister Jo Johnson told Times Radio.
But the Tory peer warned: “I think the Conservative Party has changed dramatically in the seven years since he left office… it will require a lot more than just his return to shift it back to the kind of modernising, sensible, rational party that it was when he left."
Ms Braverman’s apparent posturing for the Tory leadership may have done her no harm with the party rightwing but it did threaten to hurt Mr Sunak’s chances in the more liberal “Blue Wall” seats of southern England where the Liberal Democrats are waging a strong insurgency.
So will Mr Cameron and his “hug a hoodie” brand of One Nation Conservatism win those voters back? It should certainly mark a change in tone, but Blue Wall Remainers may not yet be ready to forgive him for taking Britain out of the European Union.
Labour-leaning Red Wallers in northern England who did back Brexit will meanwhile recall the old Etonian who issued increasingly dire warnings of its economic impact. History’s been proving him right, but nobody wants reminding of that.
The former PM saw the 2016 referendum as inescapable if the Tories were to remain united. The irony is they have been rarely as disunited in the years since, and his return threatens to reopen many old wounds.
Mr Sunak has overcome whatever misgivings he had just a few weeks ago when he attacked the “30-year status quo” in UK politics. To Mr Cameron’s credit, before his epochal misjudgement on the referendum, he was a proven winner and one of his party’s best communicators.
Ipsos UK pollster Keiran Pedley said that normally, reshuffles resonate much more in the Westminster bubble than with the public at large.
“But David Cameron’s appointment will cut through, I suspect, because it’s so unique and he’s so high profile as a former PM,” he said.
“Our polling in July for the Standard showed 45 per cent though he left the country in a worse state than he found it. So he does have his critics, it’s fair to say.
“And at a campaigning level, it’s going to be harder for the Tories to rebut Labour’s attack on 13-14 years of Tory government when you’re bringing back the man who kicked off that period.”
