LONDON – Until last month, David Cameron was known for one big thing: calling the referendum in June 2016 that produced Britain’s shocking vote to leave the European Union and unleashed a political earthquake that toppled him as prime minister.
Cameron is now in the headlines of something else: the spectacular collapse of a booming Anglo-Australian finance firm. His lobby on behalf of Greensill Capital does not appear to have violated any laws, but it has added another stain to an already chess legacy.
Greensill’s access to top British officials – aided by Cameron, who worked for the company – sparked a loud debate about lobbying rules by former leaders; critics say they are terribly inadequate. He also turned his attention to a recurring theme in Britain: the challenging later lives of British prime ministers.
From Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair, the tenants of 10 Downing Street often struggled after leaving office, an abrupt transition to private life that leaves them without the traps of power, no clear public role and little financial support. For politicians accustomed to privileging and influencing, analysts say, this can cause problems.
In Cameron’s case, he started working for Greensill Capital in 2018, according to the Financial Times, which said he could earn up to $ 70 million in stock options. The company’s collapse has rendered these companies useless. The newspaper also reported that Cameron traveled to Saudi Arabia with the company’s founder, Lex Greensill, where the two camped with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The Times of London reported that Cameron sent text messages to Chancellor of the Treasury, Rishi Sunak, urging him to approve loans to Greensill, a supply chain finance company. Mr. Sunak did not respond to requests, but questions remain as to why the company gained so much access.
Mr. Cameron did not respond to a request for comment, transmitted through the publisher of his book, HarperCollins, who referred him to his office.
Greensill’s collapse reverberated around the world, nowhere more dramatically than in Britain, where he put steel tycoon Sanjeev Gupta’s business empire at risk. Given the huge stakes involved, Cameron could end up with little more than a cameo in a global drama. The restrictions on ex-employee lobbying apply to outside lobbyists, not to those who work as employees of the company.
“He didn’t break any rules and, in a way, that’s the problem,” said Bronwen Maddox, director of the Institute for Government, a study center in London. “It seems wrong for someone so recently in office to use their influence in that way. There must be clearer rules for a longer period after the departure of a prime minister ”.
Despite all the questions about Cameron’s negotiations – not to mention his miscalculation in Brexit – he does not arouse the hostility that many Britons still feel towards Blair for his support for the Iraq war. Much of the media coverage portrayed Cameron as a decent man, guilty of errors of judgment.
Ms. Maddox said her case stresses that “Britain should do more to help Prime Ministers build a useful life after that”.
Unlike former US presidents, who get taxpayer-funded offices and can take care of building their presidential libraries, prime ministers have little in the way of smooth landing after they step down. The violent nature of British politics means that many are defenestrated – a moment, in charge of a nuclear state; the next, exiled to parliamentary benches.
Cameron announced his resignation hours after the British narrowly voted to leave the European Union, a result he campaigned against. In his last appearance in Parliament, he declared, “I once was the future,” a sad joke with a mockery that he once addressed to Blair, when Cameron was the rising leader of the conservatives and Blair a labor cousin minister in the twilight of your career.
“When you’re in politics, every day is an emotion or a spill,” said Simon Jenkins, a columnist for the Guardian. “So you’re out, almost invariably because of a big mistake. You have nothing to do and nothing you can do. “
At just 49 years old when he left office, Cameron wrote a memoir, for which he received an advance of £ 800,000 ($ 1.1 million). He joined several boards and became the president of an Alzheimer’s charity. He plays tennis regularly at a club near his home in West London. In 2017, Mr. Cameron’s wife, Samantha, started her own women’s fashion business.
A pedigree graduate of Eton and Oxford, whose father was a stockbroker, Cameron is wealthy by conventional standards. But his fortune is less than that of Blair, who has accumulated real estate and established a lucrative consulting business. Blair’s money-raising activities have also drawn criticism, especially his work on behalf of the repressive government of Kazakhstan.
Mr. Cameron’s friends described him as someone who is successful on the lecture circuit and does not care about his financial situation. In “Diary of an MP’s Wife”, a gossip story about conservative party social circles by Sasha Swire, wife of former conservative lawmaker Hugo Swire, Ms. Swire wrote that in 2017, Samantha’s business was ” taking off and Dave is making a lot of money. ”
“He says that every time he looks for a loophole to hide it, he realizes that he and George closed it and laughs,” added Swire, referring to George Osborne, who was Cameron’s Chancellor of the Treasury.
Former prime ministers, however, have far less purchasing power than former presidents. Barack and Michelle Obama signed a $ 65 million contract for several books with Penguin Random House and won millions more in a production contract with Netflix. Bill and Hillary Clinton earned $ 139 million from 2007 to 2014, mainly from speeches and books. George W. Bush also won tens of millions with speeches.
As presidents, prime ministers have become accustomed to mingling with extremely wealthy people, Jenkins said, leading them to question “why they are a former prime minister when they could have been a wealthy tycoon”.
Not everyone who vacates Downing Street has struggled. John Major, said Maddox, was undoubtedly more successful as an older statesman commentator than in office. Theresa May, who succeeded Cameron and resigned in 2019 after her efforts to strike a deal with Brexit failed, remained in Parliament as a conservative advocate and weighed in the debates at important times.
“It’s an informal system with reason here,” said Charles Moore, author of a biography of Mrs. Thatcher. “If you can’t run the majority on Commons, you’re out. This is democratic, and you should then, with a little help in the immediate transition, make your own way in the world ”.