Barack, Hillary... Lord Dave got misty-eyed name-dropping about the good old days

LORD Cameron, appearing before the Commons foreign affairs committee, told its MPs: ‘I’d be very interested in your views, I’d love your input, I’m very interested.’ Touchingly, they seemed to believe him.

You can see why foreign affairs suits the old smoothie. Diplomats need that ability to ladle treacle and press broad-brush assurances which may not necessarily be identical to what a pedant would call the truth. To an ex PM, these things are second nature.

For two hours he parried, burbled, dilated, digressed and nudged away a few testing questions about his past involvement with the Chinese.

He radiated an easy mastery of the subject yet took a gentleman amateur’s approach to detail.

He applied his reading glasses for theatrical effect.

Then, with that vanity that politicians never lose, even when they are over the brow of the hill and when they are going a little grey on top and at the temples, the spectacles were whipped off.

With his wide, handsome face he gazed innocently at the MPs. His crinkly- eyed half- smile-half-pout somehow assured these backbench boobies of his personal esteem for their remarkable contributions to public life.

And, er, who are you again?

His lordship had swept into the hearing with a retinue of aides and the usual smattering of mini-Daves in dark suits and noticeable haircuts. Such youths can always be found trailing in his wake.

Also among his aides: a Zuleika Dobson with long auburn locks and suede boots up to her knees.

She had one of those fringes that become caught in super-long eyelashes. Seen in a different light, she could have been a ringer for Sam Cam. The committee, not the strongest at Westminster, is chaired by Alicia Kearns (Con), the Eva Peron of Rutland.

She’s publicity-prone, our Alicia. At one point she made reference to some speech she gave last summer, as though we should all remember it.

Part of her wanted to love Cameron for being such a star and bringing a packed house to her dopey committee. Part of her wanted to trip him up.

On a couple of occasions when he was unable to produce an immediate answer, he pulled rank by reminiscing about the old days – a conversation he had had with President Obama.

‘So I said to him, Barack…’. President Sarkozy’s name was dropped into the conversation. So was Hillary Clinton’s. Dave looked a little misty-eyed and he pulled himself back to the smaller fry in front of him. The only time he snapped was when someone asked about his government’s Libya policy.

A2016 committee chairman had criticised it. ‘I mustn’t traduce him by getting his name wrong,’ said Cameron, ripping a page savagely from his A4 folder.

Beside him sat the Foreign Office’s permanent secretary, Sir Philip Barton. Prize bozo. A secretary of state hopes to be able to rely on his Sir Humphrey to deal with statistical details.

Sir Philip, alas, is a mumbler who never gives a clear answer. He was so inept that he had Ms Kearns snorting and sighing. Heaven knows what Dave thinks of him.

Things became bogged down in detail on the legality of Israel’s war against Hamas.

Lord Cameron, finding that Sir Philip was no help, pulled his own face sideways into an expression of amateur apology as he said ‘I’m not a lawyer’.

What about a speech he gave in Sri Lanka at the behest of a Chinese company? Lord Cameron insisted that nothing untoward had occurred, and when Ms Kearns tried to barge in with a supplementary, the Foreign Secretary held out a languid hand and drawled ‘hang on a second’.

A packed room listened to every word he said. The MPs mainly listened obediently. As I left the room, I saw Ed Miliband. Lord Cameron’s onetime opponent had just one scrofulous aide in tow. He took a wrong turn down the corridor. To be Foreign Secretary all these years on, it’s not such a hardship, you know.