‘The strain on his family was too much. Sam was worried for the children’

The burden of the referendum took its toll not just on the Prime Minister but on his wife Samantha too, as the emotions during Friday’s resignation showed, says

CALL IT an irony. Call it nemesis. Call it political martyrdom. But in the departure of David Cameron there are plenty of examples of old foes simply catching up with him. An accommodating and conciliatory politician whose creed was One Nation Conservatism has been brought down by a spectacular and damaging display of political divisiveness that pitched young against old, migrant against home-born, educated against those less so, and metropolitan against the countryside.

In 2006 he declared he wanted to put a stop to the Tory Party “banging on about Europe”. He tried to ignore it initially and latterly had a serious go at bringing it about, but Europe did for him in the end.

More recently, his friends observed that he couldn’t believe his luck in having the lacklustre Jeremy Corbyn opposing him across the ballot box at Prime Minister’s Questions. Yet many are now blaming Mr Corbyn for Labour’s muted contribution to the Remain campaign and, ultimately, for Mr Cameron losing his job.

The man who spent much of the late Eighties and early Nineties arguing about the inequities of unaccountable Brussels, but who shifted his view when confronted by the demands of high office, has been unseated by democracy.

The list of paradoxes goes on. All politicians have to buy time to achieve what they want, but time is not infinite. He had fought valiantly and honourably for his cause, but by the end of a gruelling referendum campaign he had run out of road and out of ambition.

He was simply exhausted, frustrated and felt he owed it to his wife and family to move on. His downfall had much to do with his coming up against the contradictions of his own making, forced upon him by the need to make cuts and compromises and deal with an ungovernable Conservative Party.

A certain amount of ducking and diving is demanded, but if expedience seems to get the better of conviction, then what is left? And much of Cam- eron’s political world view did not chime with that of the 2010 intake of Conservative MPs, let alone that of the 2015 group.

His own upbringing was patrician and Macmillanite, reflecting a belief that the privileged have a debt to those less fortunate. And he was indeed blessed, not only in his family circumstances and an Eton and Oxford education, but in his astounding political gifts, which, to the envy of his contemporaries, he felt no need to sharpen at university.

In the Eighties, at university, his support for Thatcherism did not make him a true Thatcherite, and in the Tories’ years in opposition he developed an almost Blairite, ultra-practical belief in “what works”. The pride in pragmatism and the dislike of dogma and doctrine enabled him to win over and modernise Ups and downs: David and Samantha Cameron at the Tory Party conference in 2005, above: on Friday in Downing St, right the party, but as Prime Minister he was, to some, too flexible for his own good. He was brilliant at the front-of-house stuff, but where was the leadership?

The managerial muddling-through was all very well, but where were the conviction and the vision? Too often decisions were made according to the demands of the day, rather than conviction or strategy. It looked irresolute and too expedient.

His handling of Europe was typical. He made enemies in the European Parliament when he pulled the Conservatives out of the European People’s Party, which helped him secure the leadership but left him a hostage to the future. He dismissed Ukip as a party of loonies and fruitcakes, but came to see that the Eurosceptics on his flank, both inside and outside his party, had to be