Party PM’s Chequers history

RATHER a shame, from Boris Johnson’s point of view, that David Cameron has joined predecessors John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in pulling out of a party this weekend at Chequers, to celebrate 100 years since the house became the Prime Minister’s official country retreat.

During DC’s years as an incumbent, the place was positively rocking most weekends, with Cameron presiding over cocktails — frothy White Ladies were his speciality — before tucking into another of the chef Graham’s delicious feasts. Chef Graham, incidentally, was the source of much rivalry between George Osborne and Cameron, since the former was always trying to poach him for his own weekend residence, Dorneywood.

On one occasion, the Great Hall — with its wood panelling and austere oil paintings — was turned into a nightclub to celebrate Samantha’s 40th; and I clearly remember the first New Year there after the 2010 general election, when DC returned triumphant from the local branch of Dixons with an X Factor karaoke machine that made the ancestors reverberate to the rafters.

There was also the famous football game on the lawn one Sunday after lunch, in which Cameron and Johnson (then Mayor of London, I think) squared off like a pair of rutting stags while the women rolled their eyes and ignored them.

If anyone knows how to party at Chequers, it’s Cameron. Something

tells me Theresa May may not have quite the same spirit of adventure.