For the Record

If the first phase of the EU’s response demonstrated the urgency of reform, the second phase showed the huge difficulties – and profound questions – that arise as attempts are made to bring about any sort of reform.

The proposal for a €500 billion fund immediately divided those members favouring budget control from those wanting greater solidarity. Had Britain still been a member of the EU I am sure we would have argued that more funding was required but that it should be for the Eurozone countries to both fund and receive the money (so addressing one of the fundamental flaws of the single currency). And yet, as the money has to be spent on measures to improve the single market, we would have wanted some safeguards and involvement.

The Brussels officialdom would have cried ‘more opt-outs, more special treatment’ and thrown up their hands in despair. The harder end of UK Eurosceptics would have argued, once more, that the inevitable moment for UK departure had arrived.

I am sure that we could have found another UK ‘special status’ solution, but the legal arrangements and parliamentary scrutiny (and both would be necessary) would have brought forth the arguments about the UK’s position in the EU all over again. Those who believe that the reform and referendum debate in the run-up to 2016 was an unnecessary confection cooked up for political reasons are profoundly wrong. Staying in the single market while remaining out of the single currency was going to require major reform if it was to be sustainable, even in the relatively short term. Without it the question of membership would have come back again and again, leading eventually, inevitably, to a referendum.

My greatest regret remains that we couldn’t continue to find a special status that kept us in those parts of the EU that were essential to our national interest while staying out of the parts that were delivering ‘ever closer union’. John Major’s single currency and Social Chapter opt-outs, Tony Blair’s carve-outs from Justice and Home Affairs, and the decision by all recent UK prime ministers to stay out of the Schengen no-borders scheme have all been part of the same British picture.

I added opt-outs from bailing out Eurozone countries and Eurozone banks while ensuring we weren’t part of schemes to redistribute EU migrants who had already arrived in Europe. My renegotiation would have added, among other things, opting out of ‘ever closer union’ altogether, with safeguards for the pound and our position in the single market, while placing tough welfare limits on EU migrants.

All these opt-outs seem messy and complicated when set against the apparent simplicities of either full-on EU solidarity or ‘taking back control’. The pragmatic, practical path is often the hardest to take …

Of course, the pandemic puts not just multilateralism but bilateralism into the spotlight – and one relationship in particular.

I staked a lot on forging better relations with China. I believed that the more we brought the country into the rules-based international system, by trading and engaging with it, the more we could encourage it to play by those rules.

It would be tempting to say that, given China’s slowness to report what was happening in Wuhan and the fake news published since, cooperation is futile, even wrong. I am not stubborn or dogmatic in my thinking about China. Indeed, I had already modified my views on the country between my early years as a politician and the period I spent writing this book; as I describe later on, while I believe a more democratic path for China is inherently desirable, I no longer believe it is inevitable.

But then I ask myself: do I really believe that it is better to shun China? Will it cooperate with us more if we condemn it, as the US president has? By disengaging, surely we would be playing into China’s hands. After all, that would create a vacuum. The danger is that as the US stops funding the WHO, China will be seen as more of a leader. What we need is engagement combined with hard-headed realism. It is that pragmatic middle ground – so often advocated in these pages, so often a vacant space in these troubled times – once again.

Here, with China, the problems and advantages of globalisation have been encapsulated. We have become so entwined with this country that we have been both crippled by a disease that originated there and subsequently dependent on its supply chains for the medical equipment we need to fight coronavirus.

The undeniable pre-eminence of this one-party state is frequently cited as proof for the claim that liberal democracy is dying on its feet. Yet I conclude in this book that the opposite is true, that the desire for freedom is too strong and the success of open markets and open political systems too clear for the world to retreat from it. Has the arrival of the pandemic caused me to revise that? Hasn’t the coronavirus response shown autocrats to be the new role models? The argument goes that they are investing in security (when we liberal democracies aren’t), building massive infrastructure (when we aren’t), and thinking strategically and long term (ditto). Aren’t they better at dealing with this sort of crisis?

It’s true that the strongmen have been emboldened by the pandemic. Xi has used it to grab more power. Trump has used it as an excuse to enact policies and make statements that even he wouldn’t normally get away with. Yet I maintain that populists are the worst leaders in a global crisis. Presidents Trump and Bolsonaro do a fine job of proving this theory. What’s more, the countries that have dealt best with COVID-19 – Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand – are all democracies. They have met it with leadership, boldness and clear communication with electorates. That is something we as fellow democracies are better placed to emulate. (One thing we can also note from the public response to COVID is that our assumptions about what people are prepared to sacrifice in the short term for a longer-term benefit might have been wrong.)

However, we cannot disregard the populists altogether. They have been elected for a reason. The grievances they feed off are real. Too many people have been left behind economically by globalisation, too many communities have been changed too rapidly. Immigration has been too high in too many places for too long. Meanwhile many of the multilateral organisations feel domineering yet remote. I outline in the chapters that follow how I spent a lot of time trying to deal with those things – to give our people the skills they need in the new economy; to rebalance our economy between our regions; to get a better sense of control and fairness in immigration; to reform institutions like the EU. I’ll admit now that we didn’t go far enough. But at the same time I would say we – the governments I led, and subsequent ones – must have been doing something right, since there is a case for arguing that Britain is the only country in Europe that hasn’t experienced the long-term, far-left and hard-right populist insurgencies that we’ve seen across the rest of the continent.

That balance between heeding grievances and pushing for reform must also apply to two other issues that have gained more traction since this book first came out.

The first is climate change. We are making huge progress on halting this. As I frequently point out to my teenage daughter, an enthusiastic activist, the UK’s carbon emissions are not just lower than they were in 1994, they are lower than in 1894. But the Greta Thunbergs and Extinction Rebellions of this world would tell a different story. They need to be careful they don’t mirror the populists, meeting a very real grievance (the warming of our planet) with hyperbole (‘the world will end in twenty years’), impossible solutions (‘we must end all carbon emissions tomorrow’) and tribalism (climate action is something for only certain people who subscribe to certain beliefs). None of that will lead to the rational, reasonable, open, pragmatic approach the climate crisis so obviously requires. Again, it is that approach that is needed to address so many of the problems of the day and that brand of politics that I advocate throughout this book.

The second issue is racism. The death of George Floyd in America rightly sparked a global outcry, not just against the violent racism displayed by police in Minneapolis, but against racism at every level, both outward and overt, insidious and institutional. Reforming stop and search, introducing name-blind job applications and forming the most diverse Cabinet in history were some small steps the governments I led took towards righting these wrongs. Free schools, the Pupil Premium, Start-Up Loans, Help to Buy and National Citizen Service were designed to lift everyone up, but had a disproportionate effect on minorities. Of course, there is much, much more to do. But, as with climate change, we must be careful not to undermine a genuine, heinous problem – the quality of people’s lives being dictated by the colour of their skin – by obsessing over symbols, playing identity politics and stoking culture wars. Those things not only distract. They actually entrench division – even create division – when we should be building a society rooted in the fact that, as the late MP Jo Cox is quoted as saying on page 675, ‘we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us’.

I have tried throughout to mention as many people as I can who worked with me over the years. I am sorry to anyone I’ve missed. I am so proud of you all – not only of what we achieved together but what so many have gone on to do, in finding centre-right answers to the biggest problems we face, from climate change to poverty, modern slavery, an ageing society, delivering government services and more.

I also want to thank those who helped me in writing this book. Danny Finkelstein, who listened to me download my thoughts over the years and helped me shape my arguments when the time came to write about it all. Jonathan Meakin, whose research and fact-checking capacity at times seemed equivalent to an entire government department. Arabella Pike at HarperCollins, my late agent Ed Victor and Katherine Patrick for her sterling publicity programme the first time round. Special thanks go to all those people who contributed, commented and reviewed various drafts – especially Nigel Casey, Camilla Cavendish, Peter Chadlington, Kate Fall, Andrew Feldman, Rupert Harrison, Jo Johnson, Craig Oliver, George Osborne, Hugh Powell, Oliver Letwin, Ed Llewellyn and Liz Sugg. The biggest thank you by far is to Jess Cunniffe, who first interviewed me on the campaign trail for a Milton Keynes newspaper, became my speechwriter in Downing Street and, eventually, helped me to write these memoirs.

I have been so lucky in so many ways in my life – I haven’t tried to hide that in the pages that follow – but my greatest fortune has been to find a partner who has been the love of my life, my best friend and my rock. All these years on, I am still in awe of her. So I dedicate this book to Samantha. And together we want to thank those friends who have been our rocks, especially Chris and Venetia Lockwood and Mary Wynne Finch.

This book is not a historical diary, or a political potboiler of who said what to whom and when. It is my take on my life and my political career, done my way. It is to help us understand the past and give us some pause for the future. It is for us today, and – I hope – for posterity. It is For the Record.

David Cameron

September 2020

1

Five Days in May

On Friday, 7 May 2010 I woke up in a dark, modern hotel room opposite the Houses of Parliament feeling deeply disappointed.

I had led the Conservative Party for half a decade, modernised it and steered it through a gruelling general election campaign. We had won more seats than any other party – more new seats than at any election for eighty years. We were the largest party in Parliament by far.

But it wasn’t enough. For the first time in decades that glorious, golden building across the Thames was ‘hung’, because no single party had reached the absolute majority needed to form a government.

That wasn’t just a blow to my party, it was – in my view – a blow to Britain. The country had just suffered the worst recession since the Second World War. Banks had been nationalised, businesses had folded and unemployment was climbing to a fifteen-year high. Just a few days earlier, Greece had been bailed out by the EU and the IMF. Athens was ablaze, our TV screens filled with images of protesters burning tyres and clashing with riot police in response to the austerity the bailout demanded.

Not only was our economy entwined with those on the continent. Our budget deficit was projected to be 11 per cent of GDP – the same as Greece’s. We also needed dramatic reforms, and couldn’t go on spending as we had. A stable, decisive government was more important than ever.

Yet we were far from that now. And while thirty million people had voted, what happened next would be largely down to just three of them: the serving Labour prime minister, Gordon Brown; the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg; and me.

So much has been written about the days that followed that election result. Documentaries, books and even films have catalogued every meeting and every moment, every twist and every turn. What can I add? Well, the emotions I felt. The things that motivated me, and people who influenced me. An insight not just into the rooms in which events took place, but into my mind when the decisions were made. In short, what it was like to be right at the centre during that extraordinary time in British politics.

So, Friday started with disappointment. We had failed to win some of the seats we should have won – and failed to seal the deal with the British people. Thirteen long years of opposition still weren’t over.

Of course, there was also a sense of relief. I had travelled 10,000 miles in the past month, trying to squeeze every last vote out of every marginal constituency, culminating in a twenty-four-hour length-and-breadth tour of Britain. I was exhausted.

The previous day, my team and I had met at the home of Steve Hilton, not far from my constituency home in the village of Dean, West Oxfordshire, and talked about the electoral outlook. Steve and I had worked together at the party’s headquarters, Conservative Central Office, during our twenties. He had become renowned as a left-field thinker of the centre-right – passionate, bold, volatile, magnetic, and I’d made him my director of strategy. He was also a close friend to me and my wife, Samantha, and godfather to our first child, Ivan.

The magic number was 326: that was how many seats were needed for an absolute majority. But I knew all the marginal constituencies well, and I just didn’t see us winning them all. I predicted we’d end up with between 300 and 310 seats.

One person who had come to the same conclusion – and we often reached the same conclusion – was George Osborne, shadow chancellor and chief of our general election campaign. Five years younger than me, he was my partner in politics: urban while I was more rural, realistic where I would sometimes let ideas run away with me, and more polit­ically astute than anyone I’d ever met. He impressed me every single day.

The final tally of Conservative MPs was 306. While that was more or less what I had expected, what did surprise me was that the Lib Dems – in many ways the stars of the campaign, after Nick Clegg’s initial success in Britain’s first-ever TV election debates – had done worse than predicted, and lost seats. Labour – despite its unpopular leader, despite being obviously tired after thirteen years in power, despite having presided over the biggest financial crash in living memory, and despite many forecasts to the contrary – had done better than predicted.

I was surprised, too, by the ambiguity of the result. Whenever people had asked me beforehand what I would do in the event of a hung Parliament, I said I would do what democracy dictated. I thought that the result would point to an obvious outcome. If we were the largest party, we would form a minority government or – less likely – a coalition. If Labour was the largest party, it would do the same.

But that Friday morning I realised things hadn’t turned out like that. Democracy hadn’t been decisive, so I would have to be.

I was alone in that hotel room. Samantha, heavily pregnant with our fourth child, had gone home to get our children, Nancy and Elwen, ready for school. I ran through all the permutations. All I could think when I considered each was what my dad used to say to me: ‘If you’re not sure what to do, just do the right thing.’

A Conservative minority government was one clear option. With the most seats, we had a real claim to govern. But it would mean six months or more of playing politics day after day, trying to create the circumstances for a successful second general election. And at a time when the global economy was in peril, I knew instinctively that it would be the wrong option.

In any event, there was another real possibility: a ‘rainbow coalition’ of Labour, Lib Dems and other minor parties, which together constituted an anti-Tory majority. I knew that some in our party would say, let them get on with it. Wait while they forge a shaky alliance and then watch it collapse, forcing a new general election in months.

But as the instability of that morning stretched into the distance, I felt it would be wrong to help inflict such an outcome on a country that needed direction. At this time of national need, stability was paramount.

Another option was a Conservative minority government propped up by the Lib Dems through a ‘confidence and supply’ agreement. It would be less precarious than a minority government, but far from stable or effective. We would never be able to pass all the reforms that were so desperately needed.

They were needed not just to fix our broken economy, but to mend our broken society. Thirteen years of Labour had left us with a school system that, despite the beginnings of worthwhile reform, encouraged mediocrity. We had a welfare system that discouraged work, a health system that was struggling under the weight of new demands and bureaucracy, and a criminal justice system that undermined social responsibility. For all the money they had thrown at problems, Labour had neglected the family, patronised the elderly, and ignored some of our most ingrained ills, from addiction to abuse. In opposition we’d spent five years preparing to put these things right, but I didn’t think a minority government with only a confidence and supply deal would be up to the task.

The final possibility was forming a full coalition between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems. Yet the Lib Dems were ideologically and historically closer to Labour than to us. Plus, minor parties never fared well in coalitions. What Lib Dem leader would be prepared to take such a risk?

Step forward Nick Clegg. His party, and its predecessor the Liberal Party, had been out of power for nearly a century, but his brand of sens­ible centrism and personal charisma gave it the biggest chance in decades to return to the forefront of British politics.

And what Conservative leader would want to join forces with a party that we had just been fighting ferociously for seats across much of the country, and that was seen by Conservative Party members and MPs as both left-wing and opportunistic?

Well, that would be me. I’d been MP for Witney in West Oxfordshire for nine years, and leader of my party for five. For most of my adult life I’d worked for the Conservative Party. I felt that my years navigating the British political system made me a match for this difficult task.

But more than that, I felt the courage of my convictions. I’d had about three hours’ sleep over the last couple of nights, yet I saw with complete lucidity what needed to happen. It wasn’t the obvious thing to do, but it was the right thing to do. I bounded out of bed and summoned my team – not to ask them what we should do, but to tell them.

The election result didn’t feel like an accident, I said. Something different had happened, because people wanted something different. Parliament hadn’t been hung for thirty-six years. I was advocating something that hadn’t been done in peacetime for 150 years: forming a full coalition.

I called the ‘big beasts’ of the Conservative Party to inform them of my approach. John Major, the last Tory leader to have won an election, eighteen years previously. Former leaders like Michael Howard and Iain Duncan Smith. Party grandees, and my leadership rivals from five years earlier, Liam Fox and Ken Clarke. And the candidate who had made it into the final two with me, David Davis.

The feedback was overwhelmingly that it would be right to reach out to the Lib Dems, although there was the odd exception. ‘Davis thinks it’s a bad idea,’ I reported to my team after I had hung up the phone. ‘Which means I’m probably on the right track.’

Then Nick Clegg appeared briefly on the TV. He had led his party to new heights in the polls, and then, as I have said, lost seats. Still – and politics can be so strange like this – he found himself holding the balance of power. He stayed true to what he had said before the election: that if there was a hung Parliament he would talk first to the party with the largest number of seats. The door to power opened a crack.

Soon afterwards, the actual door to power – the big, black one with ‘10’ on it – was flung open and Gordon Brown came out into Downing Street. He was ready, he said, to talk to the Lib Dems once they had spoken to us. I had thought that he would in some way concede that Labour had lost the election, and set the scene for his departure. George laughed at the suggestion: Brown, he said, would have to be prised out of No. 10 as he clung to the railings by his fingernails. He was right.

Fortunately, some of the spadework for a possible coalition with the Lib Dems had already been done. Before the election I had sanctioned George to compare our manifestos and prepare the ground for a deal with the potential kingmakers alongside my chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn. Diminutive and quietly spoken, Ed derived his authority from his intellect, decency and experience, having been chief of staff to Chris Patten in Hong Kong before the handover, and to Paddy Ashdown in Bosnia after the war.

They would work on this with Oliver Letwin, the West Dorset MP and the party’s policy chief. Oliver was kind, endearing and clever. He may have looked like an old-fashioned Tory MP, with red corduroy trousers and matching complexion, but no one had been more influential in helping me develop my brand of ‘modern, compassionate conservatism’ over the past five years.

I hadn’t taken part in any of the coalition preparation. I wanted to be single-minded about winning, and not to dissemble if people asked me what I had done to prepare for a coalition.

A huge amount would rest on the speech I would give, and we chose St Stephen’s Club as the venue. Commentators made much of the fact that overlooking me was a portrait of Winston Churchill, the last prime minister to lead a coalition, in his case during the Second World War. But it was the ghost of another great PM, the club’s first patron, Benjamin Disraeli, whose presence I really felt.

‘England does not love coalitions,’ Disraeli famously said. In many ways, I agreed. I had made endless speeches about supporting our electoral system because it produced decisive results and strong governments. In Europe it often took months to form a government – months of political instability that recession-battered Britain could not afford. But I felt that, given our circumstances, coalition really was the right choice – and I believed I could make it work.

I stepped up to the lectern to make my pitch. A strong, stable government that had the support of the public to take the difficult decisions was, I said, needed to put the country back on track. I didn’t use the word ‘coalition’ – I didn’t have to. It was clear that a coalition was on the table from the fact that I specifically talked about going beyond a confidence and supply deal.