A LIFE THAT’S STALLED
Boozing at a pop festival, smoking again, piling on the pounds, the truth behind this jaw-dropping photo of an ex-PM
During his post-Downing Street years, former Tory prime minister Harold Macmillan enjoyed spending time in Cumbria.
On one occasion, as he was being driven out of the market town of Cockermouth, a winter storm was building.
Looking up to the gathering of dark clouds, Macmillan, the most erudite of politicians, quoted Wordsworth as he observed the ‘grandeur and tumult’ of the scene.
Another Conservative prime minister, David Cameron, a man whose political outlook has often been compared to the ‘one-nation Tory’ Macmillan, was in the wilds last weekend. The Wilderness festival, to be precise. inspiration was being provided not by a Lakeland poet but an act called Daft Punk reimagined, the singer grace Jones (who, in her 70th year, still often strips topless on stage) and the Jamaican group Toots and the Maytals.
The different tastes of these Tory leaders reveal much about their characters and their post-political lives.
indeed, Cameron cut a rather sorry figure at the Oxfordshire event. How he must have cringed when photographs emerged of him clutching a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other, ambushed by a lady in a pink wig and sequinned coat bearing a large heart with the name ‘Corbyn’. in another, he unintentionally ‘photo-bombed’ a selfie-taker wearing a bowler hat, flower crown and waxed moustache.
it is hard to know what was most embarrassing. His ‘down-with-the-kids’ presence at a festival whose ethos is ‘Nomads and gastronomes. Rockers and roamers. Drifters and dreamers. The reclusive, the wise, the weird and the wild. Step in and linger’?
Or was it being caught smoking? Or falling prey to selfie-takers and Corbynistas?
During the Downing Street years he worked hard never to be seen with a cigarette. And it was the revelation of his nicotine habit that was most telling. Having kicked smoking for several years, he started again after his abrupt resignation following the Eu referendum last summer.
His wife, Samantha, who was always an occasional smoker, increased her usage greatly during the campaign. To be fair, the couple never smoke in front of their children, who are aged from six to 13.
THiSweek the family was in Cornwall, a bucket-and-spade break for the children and surfing for David, who appeared chubbier than usual in his wetsuit. it was the Camerons’ sixth holiday since David left politics. But the truth is that he is struggling to cope with life after no 10.
Whereas Macmillan was 69 when he quit, Cameron was just 49 — with years of productive working life still ahead of him.
He must look on with wonder at his onetime government buddy, george Osborne, who has taken on six jobs: editorship of the London Evening Standard; an honorary professorship at the university of Manchester; chairmanship of a business lobby called northern Powerhouse Partnership; being an advisor to a u.S. fund management firm; giving lectures for the Washington Speakers Bureau and a fellowship at a u.S. think tank.
For his part, Cameron has a few commitments: he’s said to charge £ 120,000 an hour for speeches and is supposed to be working on his memoirs.
in reality things have stalled for the Old Etonian who once gave the impression that life’s cherries fell easily into his lap.
One hitch has been the death of his literary agent Ed Victor, who was taking a keen interest in the memoirs. nevertheless, the book is still set for publication in time for the 2018 Tory conference.
Cameron has hired a researcher to wade through reams of documents and papers. Close friend Lord (Danny) Finkelstein is also helping out. The journalist peer has transcribed 53 hours of taped reminiscences. But Cameron is still struggling to become engaged with the book. He phones friends for a natter and invites them to play tennis. He is still close to his Oxford university chum Lord (Andrew) Feldman, whom he controversially made Tory Party chairman though he had never been elected to public office.
But his broken relationship with Michael gove — over the latter’s support for Leave in the Eu referendum — has never been repaired. The Camerons have publicly refused to have anything to do with gove or his wife Sarah, a Mail columnist.
Others, too, have been banished. One Tory MP who used to be close to Cameron said: ‘A lot of us have been dropped. i think we are an uncomfortable reminder of Dave’s past. it’s not easy for him. Tony Blair and gordon Brown both had time to prepare for their exit from no 10. Dave had a matter of days and he is struggling to come to terms.’
Samantha’s attempts to strike out with a post-no 10 life have struggled, too. She launched her clothing label Cefinn this year, but observers say her decision to open up their Cotswolds home for a shoot in Harper’s Bazaar magazine suggests that she might be in need of publicity.
Most of her clothes are sold online but there is an outlet in Selfridges in Central London. it boasts just one rail with 14 items. On two successive weekdays, over two hours at lunchtime, the Mail observed a handful of women pause to look at or try on items. There appeared to be no buyers. There are, however, said to be ambitious plans to launch the range in another European capital such as Paris.
OnEof her backers is Mark Esiri, an old friend who was chairman of Smythson, the upmarket stationers where Sam Cam made her name as creative director. The Old Etonian founded a venture capital firm whose investors include millionaire Pr man Matthew Freud, a stalwart of the Chipping norton Set of media types who live near the Camerons in Oxfordshire.
By any standard the Camerons are fabulously rich — even though Sam Cam has complained that she didn’t have enough ‘disposable income’ to afford designer clothes after paying for childcare and a mortgage.
The couple own two homes worth an estimated £4.8 million in total and Samantha’s father, Sir reginald Sheffield, Baronet, has a property empire worth more than £20 million. Samantha’s mother Annabel is the co-founder of furniture retailer OKA.
Mrs Cameron set up Samantha Cameron Studio Ltd in the same week her husband launched The Office of David Cameron Ltd to bank his earnings.
But as he struggles to find a role, David is realising that his failure to secure the next big job may be down to his hubris in calling the Eu vote, his inability to extract meaningful reforms from Brussels and his cynical role in Project Fear — not to mention the chaos he left behind in the Tory party.
To return to his ‘ one-nation’ soulmate; while Macmillan’s career was tempestuous at times — for instance, picking up the pieces after the humiliation of the Suez crisis — he left the party he loved in a far stronger condition than when he arrived at no 10.