A shabby end to Cameron’s tenure

A MIDDLE-AGED man in a crumpled, ill-fitting suit shuffles across Downing Street to waiting reporters.

It’s a short walk but it seems an eternity.

After a brief soundbite congratulating his successor, he turns and trundles back to Number 10, his shoulders slumped, his stature ebbing away by the second.

He hums slightly awkwardly to himself as he approaches the famous black door he will enter only a handful more times, before uttering a matter of fact “right”.

Now picture a tall woman striding out purposefully, beaming ear to ear.

She is the future – he was the future once, to steal the Witney MP’s line.

It’s an odd thought that one day you are prime minister with all the power that entails and then suddenly you are not.

All at once you are just a person, like everybody else, albeit in David Cameron’s case with a £17 million mansion.

Incidentally, who says his legacy is Brexit?

Surely, he will go down in history for his lament, already a fully-scored piece?

When speaking in Downing Street, his addresses have routinely been slick, delivered from behind a lectern just yards in front of the door.

This time Muhammad had come to the mountain.

There was a haphazard feel about it, perhaps unsurprising given he should have had two months rather than a matter of days to prepare for his departure.

Aside from a sparkling performance at his final PMQs and a more dignified formal statement en route to Buckingham Palace to step down officially, he has appeared diminished ever since the Brexit vote forced his resignation.

There was also an uncomfortable moment when he was dispatched by Theresa May to unveil a memorial to two police officers killed while on duty.

The shiny new prime minister – too busy with her Cabinet cull – had asked him to attend, he said.

Maybe he can fill in for her on further occasions in the future when she’s tied up with other things?

Clearly, she’s had a lot on her plate.

Like Cameron, she had not expected to find herself in the top job so quickly, but it didn’t look good.

Among her most startling appointments was Boris Johnson to the post of foreign secretary, sparking outrage and mockery in equal measure around the world.

He is plainly hugely intelligent and yet, on his first day, a very flustered former London mayor couldn’t even find his car.

That said, in his Vote Leave victory speech, the beginnings of a more serious politician began to surface, so he could surprise us all – and possibly in a good way.

Well that or Mrs May has given him just enough rope to hang himself so she can sack him, neutralising his threat, when he messes up.

With the installation of other prominent Brexiteers in key posts – David Davis, Liam Fox, Priti Patel – there is a also a sense the new prime minister is reminding them “this is your responsibility”.

The other remarkable thing about her Cabinet is just how right-wing it is, at odds with her social justice message in her first speech in charge.

And she openly wants to keep her enemies closest, having promoted Andrea Leadsom – her former leadership rival – to environment secretary.

It has been a long week for the mother who was still in the running to replace Cameron on Monday morning, ultimately deciding to quit after a bruising weekend of scrutiny she somehow naively hadn’t been expecting.

Her withdrawal was perfectly timed to coincide with Angela Eagle’s Labour leadership launch.

Embarrassingly, the Wallasey MP was left taking questions from journalists who weren’t there to ask them after most of the lobby – already in transit – made an about-turn and hurriedly flocked to Mrs Leadsom’s gig instead.

And in a further blow to her campaign Owen Smith is to run against her – as Labour’s second unity candidate.

But it doesn’t matter anyway – the ruling by the party’s governing body that Jeremy Corbyn will automatically be on the ballot means he marches on regardless.