The Right Honourable John Bercow MP
Speaker of the House of Commons
Incumbent
Assumed office 22 June 2009
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Preceded by	Michael Martin
Shadow Secretary of State for International Development
In office 6 November 2003 – 23 September 2004
Leader	Michael Howard
Preceded by	Caroline Spelman
Succeeded by	Alan Duncan
Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury
In office 18 September 2001 – 23 July 2002
Leader	Iain Duncan Smith
Preceded by	Oliver Letwin
Succeeded by	Howard Flight
Member of Parliament for Buckingham
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 May 1997
Preceded by	George Walden
Majority	12,529 (25.9%)
Personal details
Born	(1963-01-19) 19 January 1963 (age 49) Edgware, Middlesex, England
Nationality	British
Political party	Not applicable
Other political affiliations	Conservative (1986–2009)
Spouse(s)	Sally Bercow (née Illman)
Children	Oliver Freddie Jemima
Residence	London
Alma mater	University of Essex
Religion	Judaism

John Simon Bercow ( /ˈbɜrkoʊ/ BUR-koh; born 19 January 1963) is a British politician who has been the Speaker of the House of Commons since June 2009. Prior to his election to Speaker he was a member of the Conservative Party.

Bercow was born in Middlesex into a Jewish family and graduated from the University of Essex in 1985. In his youth, Bercow was active in the Conservative Party and was a member of several right-wing groups within the party. He served as a Councillor from 1986–1990 and unsuccessfully contested parliamentary seats in the 1987 and 1992 General Elections. In the 1997 General Election, Bercow was elected the MP for Buckingham and promoted to the shadow cabinet in 2001. He held posts in the Shadow Cabinets of Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard. In November 2002, he resigned from the Shadow Cabinet over disputes concerning the Adoption and Children Act but returned under Michael Howard in 2003. In September 2004, Bercow was sacked from the Shadow Cabinet after disagreements with leader Michael Howard.

Following the resignation of the Speaker, Michael Martin, Bercow announced his intention to stand for the Speakership election on 22 June 2009 and was successful. He was re-elected to this post on 18 May 2010 following unsuccessful challenges in the General Election.^[1]

Early life and career[link]

Bercow was born to a British Jewish family in Edgware, Middlesex.^[2] His paternal grandparents were Jews who arrived in Britain from Romania a century ago.^[3][4] The son of a taxi driver, Bercow attended Frith Manor Primary School in Woodside Park, and Finchley Manorhill, a large comprehensive school in North Finchley. In his youth, Bercow had been ranked Britain's No.1 junior tennis player. However, a bout of glandular fever ended his chances of pursuing a career as a professional tennis player.^[5]

Bercow graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Government from the University of Essex in 1985.^[6] Professor Anthony King remembers: "When he was a student here, he was very right-wing, pretty stroppy, and very good. He was an outstanding student."^[6] As a young activist, Bercow was a member of the right-wing Conservative Monday Club, becoming Secretary of its Immigration and Repatriation Committee. However, at the age of 20 he left the club, citing the views of many of the club's members as his reason.^[7] In 1981 Bercow had stood as a candidate for the national executive of the Monday Club and called for a programme of "assisted repatriation" of immigrants.^[8]

After graduating from university, Bercow was elected as the last National Chairman of the Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) from 1986–87.^[6] The FCS was then broken up by the Chairman of the Conservative Party, Norman Tebbit, after one of its members had accused previous Tory PM Harold McMillan of war crimes in extraditing Cossacks to the Soviet Union.^[9] Bercow attracted the attention of the Conservative leadership, and in 1987 he was appointed by Tebbit as Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Collegiate Forum (the successor organisation of the FCS) to head the campaign for student support in the run-up to the 1987 General Election.

After a spell in merchant banking, Bercow joined the lobbying firm Rowland Sallingbury Casey (part of Saatchi & Saatchi) in 1988, becoming a board director within five years.

With fellow Conservative Dr Julian Lewis, Bercow ran an Advanced Speaking and Campaigning course for over ten years, which trained over 600 Conservatives (including several current MPs) in campaigning and communication techniques. He has also lectured in the United States to students of the Leadership Institute.^[10]

Political career[link]

Councillor[link]

In 1986, Bercow was elected as a Conservative Councillor in the London Borough of Lambeth. He served as a Councillor for four years. In 1987, he was appointed the youngest Deputy Group Leader in the United Kingdom.^[11]

Special adviser[link]

In 1995, Bercow was appointed as a Special Adviser to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Jonathan Aitken. After Aitken's resignation to fight a libel action, Bercow served as a Special Adviser to the Secretary of State for National Heritage, Virginia Bottomley.

Parliamentary career[link]

Bercow was an unsuccessful Conservative candidate in the 1987 General Election in Motherwell, and again at the 1992 General Election in Bristol South. In 1996, he paid £1,000 to hire a helicopter so that he could attend the selection meetings for two safe Conservative parliamentary seats on the same day – Buckingham and Surrey Heath – and was selected as the candidate for Buckingham. He has referred to the hiring of the helicopter as "the best £1,000 I have ever spent".^[11]

Bercow was first elected to Parliament in the 1997 General Election as the MP for Buckingham with a majority of 12,386. He then increased his majority, having been re-elected at the 2005 General Election by a margin of 18,129 votes. He was also re-elected at the 2010 General Election, but with a reduced majority of 12,529 votes.

Bercow rose quickly through the opposition's junior offices. He was appointed a frontbench spokesman for Education and Employment in June 1999, and then a frontbench spokesman for Home Affairs in July 2000, before being brought into the Shadow Cabinet in 2001 by the Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith. He served as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury from September 2001 – July 2002, and as Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions from July–November 2002. During this first spell on the frontbench, Bercow publicly stated that he did not think he was ruthless enough to reach the top of politics.^[12] In November 2002, when the Labour government introduced the Adoption and Children Act, which would allow unmarried gay and heterosexual couples to adopt children, Duncan Smith imposed a three-line whip requiring Conservative MPs to vote against the bill rather than allowing a free vote. In protest, Bercow defied the whips and voted with the government arguing that it should be a free vote. He then resigned from the frontbench.^[13] As a backbencher he was openly critical of Duncan Smith's leadership, declaring that he was about as likely to "meet an Eskimo in the desert" as Duncan Smith was to win the next general election.^[14]

In November 2003, the new Conservative Leader Michael Howard appointed Bercow as Shadow Secretary of State for International Development. However, he went on to clash with Howard over taxes, immigration and Iraq,^[15] and was sacked from the frontbench in September 2004 after telling Howard that Ann Widdecombe was right to have said that there was "something of the night about him".^[16]

Bercow has a long-standing interest in Burma and frequently raised issues of democracy and genocide in the country. In 2006 he was made a Patron of the Tory Reform Group.^[17] In 2001, he also supported the ban on MPs becoming members of the Monday Club, an organisation of which he is a former member (see above).^[18]

Bercow was formerly the Treasurer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tribal Peoples,^[19] an APPG composed of over 30 cross-party MPs who aim to raise parliamentary and public awareness of tribal peoples.^[20]

Opposition MP of the Year[link]

In 2005, Bercow won the Channel Four/Hansard Society Political Award for 'Opposition MP of the Year'. He said:

I shall treasure this award and I am extremely grateful to my colleagues for it. Winning it has raised the question of what is good opposition. I think that the public is fed up with one politician simply ranting at another politician for the sake of it. The public deserves to see a more measured and constructive approach to politics. In addition to pursuing a wide variety of local issues, I have attempted to question, probe and scrutinise the Government in the House of Commons on important national and international topics which concern people. Over the last 12 months, I have constantly pressed the case for reform of world trade rules to give the poorest people on the planet a chance to sell their products and improve their quality of life. The plight of the people of Darfur, Western Sudan, has also been a regular theme. They have suffered too much for too long with too little done about the situation. I shall go on arguing for Britain to take the lead in the international community in seeking decisive action for peace and justice.^[21]

Rumours of defection[link]

Following the defection of Conservative MP Quentin Davies to the Labour Party in June 2007, there were persistent rumours^[22] that Bercow was likely to be the next Conservative MP to leave the Party.

Despite these rumours, Bercow did not defect to the Labour Party. However, in September 2007, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that Bercow had accepted an advisory post on the Labour government's review of support for children with speech, language and communication special needs. The Conservative Party Chairman, Caroline Spelman, confirmed that this appointment was with the consent of the Conservative Party.^[23] Bercow had a long-term interest in this topic. As he mentioned in a speech in the House of Commons on 1 February 2008,^[24] his son Oliver has been diagnosed with autism.

The Bercow Review[link]

In 2008, John Bercow was asked by Labour Cabinet members Ed Balls and Alan Johnson to produce a substantial review of children and families affected by speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). After the report, the government pledged £52 million to raise the profile of SLCN within the education field.

The review looks at the extreme consequences that communication problems can lead to – from initial frustration at not being able to express oneself, to bullying or being bullied at school, fewer job prospects and even the descent into criminality.^[25][26]

The interim report highlighted a number of core issues: that speech, language and communication are not only essential life skills but fundamental human rights; that early identification of problems and intervention is important to avoid social problems later on; and that the current system of treatment is patchy, i.e. there is a need for services to be continually provided for children and families from an early age.^[27][28]

Role in expenses scandal[link]

Until 2008/09 Bercow usually claimed the maximum available amount for the 'Additional Costs Allowance' to pay for the cost of staying away from his main home. However, in 2007/08 and 2008/09 his total expenses were amongst the lowest claimed by MPs (coming 631st and 640th, respectively, out of 645 and 647).^[29]

During the 2009 parliamentary expenses scandal, it was revealed that Bercow changed the designation of his second home on more than one occasion – meaning that he avoided paying capital gains tax on the sale of two properties. He also claimed just under £1,000 to hire an accountant to fill in his tax returns. Bercow denied any wrongdoing, but agreed to pay £6,508 to cover any tax that he may have had to pay to HM Revenue and Customs.^[30]

Speaker of the House of Commons[link]

Bercow had long campaigned quietly to become Speaker^[31] and was touted as a successor to Michael Martin. On 20 May 2009, he officially announced his intention to stand in the Speakership election, which had been triggered by Martin's resignation, and launched his manifesto for the job.^[32] In the first round of the election on 22 June, Bercow received 179 votes – more than any other candidate, but short of the majority required for victory. In the third and final round of voting later that day, he defeated Sir George Young by 322 votes to 271,^[33] and was approved by the Queen at 10 pm that night as the 157th Speaker.

Bercow's election as Speaker was controversial because he is believed to have had the support of very few MPs from his own Party. Fellow Conservative MPs generally viewed Bercow with distrust because of his changing political views (having moved over the years from being very right-wing to become more socially liberal, leading to clashes with past party leaders), his acceptance of an advisory role from the Labour government (a party he had often been rumoured to be on the verge of joining), his general lack of good relations with fellow MPs from his own party, and his vigorous campaigning for the Speaker's job. It has been speculated that he received the votes of as few as three of his fellow Conservative MPs. However, he received the votes of a large number of Labour MPs, many of whom were angered at the way they perceived Michael Martin to have been hounded out of the job and wanted his replacement to be someone who was not a favourite of the Conservative Party.^[34][35]

Bercow is the first Jewish Speaker,^[36] the first Speaker to have been elected by an exhaustive ballot, and the first Speaker not to wear traditional court robes while presiding over the House of Commons.^[37] However, in accordance with tradition, Bercow does now display his coat of arms at Speaker's House.^[38]

According to some MPs, Conservatives believe that Bercow has behaved in a biased manner as Speaker.^[39]

Speaker's residence controversy[link]

Within weeks of taking office as Speaker, Bercow ordered a redecoration and refurbishment of the Speaker's grace and favour apartment in the Palace of Westminster, buying a large television and a DVD player; the work cost £20,659 and was paid for by Parliament. It followed previous extensive work on the apartment under the previous Speaker.^[40] Publicity was given to a bill of more than £600 for food and drink in the Palace of Westminster in April 2010, when the Financial Controller of the House of Commons wrote informing Bercow that there were "items which have been outstanding for at least two months" on it; it was paid later in the month.^[41]

2010 General Election[link]

The Speaker of the House of Commons is traditionally seen as outside party politics, and is often not challenged by the main parties at general elections, including the 2010 general election. In September 2009 Nigel Farage resigned his leadership of the United Kingdom Independence Party to challenge Bercow, asserting: "This man represents all that is wrong with British politics today. He was embroiled in the expenses saga and he presides over a Parliament that virtually does nothing."^[42][43] John Stevens, another candidate, found support for his campaign from Martin Bell.^[44] Bercow also faced opposition from the British National Party and the Christian Party.^[45]

As Bercow lacked a formal party endorsement and therefore a campaign team, he sought to build one and a group of his supporters known as 'Friends of Speaker Bercow' solicited donations for the campaign. They aimed to raise £40,000. When one of their letters was received by a member of the UK Independence Party, the recipient referred it to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, complaining that it appeared that Bercow's fundraising campaign was operating from the Speaker's Office, which is required to remain politically neutral.^[46] The Commissioner declined to launch an investigation because of the lack of evidence of involvement of the Speaker's Office.^[47]

1911 Centenary Lectures[link]

To mark the centenary of the Parliament Act 1911, Bercow commissioned a series of 11 lectures throughout 2011 covering some of the main political figures of the century. Each lecture was given to an invited audience in Speaker's House and was recorded for broadcast on BBC Parliament. The subjects were:^[48]

• David Lloyd George by Lord Morgan, 11 January
• F. E. Smith by Sir Peter Tapsell MP, 1 February
• Nancy Astor by Shirley Williams, 29 March
• Sir Winston Churchill by Nicholas Soames MP, 26 April
• Aneurin Bevan by Gordon Marsden MP, 17 May
• Enoch Powell by Lord Norton of Louth, 14 June
• Michael Foot by Lord Kinnock, 12 July
• Iain Macleod by Lord Hurd, 6 September
• Roy Jenkins by Lord Adonis, 25 October
• Margaret Thatcher by John Whittingdale MP, 15 November
• Tony Benn by Tristram Hunt MP, 6 December

Great Offices of State Lectures[link]

Following the centenary lectures, Bercow instituted a new 11 lecture series for 2012 on the subject of the 'Great Offices of State' (those of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary). In introducing the first lecture, Bercow noted that his assistant had spotted that there were 11 sitting Members who had served in one or more of these offices but had not been Prime Minister, and that all had accepted his invitation to give a lecture. The lecturers were:

• Kenneth Clarke (Home Secretary 1992-93, Chancellor of the Exchequer 1993-97), 24 January
• Alistair Darling (Chancellor of the Exchequer 2007-10), 20 February
• Theresa May (Home Secretary since 2010), 26 March
• Malcolm Rifkind (Foreign Secretary 1995-97), 23 April
• David Blunkett (Home Secretary 2001-04), 15 May

Future lecturers are Margaret Beckett (Foreign Secretary 2006-07), William Hague (Foreign Secretary since 2010), Alan Johnson (Home Secretary 2009-10), David Miliband (Foreign Secretary 2007-10), George Osborne (Chancellor of the Exchequer since 2010) and Jack Straw (Home Secretary 1997-2001, Foreign Secretary 2001-06).

References[link]

External links[link]

• Debrett's People of Today
• John Bercow MP official constituency website
• The Speaker official Parliament website
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
• Current session contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Electoral history and profile at The Guardian
• Voting record at PublicWhip.org
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou.com
• Profile at Westminster Parliamentary Record
• Profile at BBC News Democracy Live
• Articles authored at Journalisted
• APPG for Tribal Peoples – Official website

News articles

• Profile: Commons Speaker, John Bercow, David Hencke, The Guardian, 22 June 2009
• The John Bercow story, Brian Wheeler, BBC News, 24 June 2009
• Getting the House in order, James Macintyre, Prospect magazine, 20 July 2011

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The Right Honourable David Cameron MP
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Incumbent
Assumed office 11 May 2010
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Deputy	Nick Clegg
Preceded by	Gordon Brown
Leader of the Opposition
In office 6 December 2005 – 11 May 2010
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Prime Minister	Tony Blair Gordon Brown
Preceded by	Michael Howard
Succeeded by	Harriet Harman
Leader of the Conservative Party
Incumbent
Assumed office 6 December 2005
Preceded by	Michael Howard
Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills
In office 6 May 2005 – 6 December 2005
Leader	Michael Howard
Preceded by	Tim Yeo
Succeeded by	David Willetts
Member of Parliament for Witney
Incumbent
Assumed office 7 June 2001
Preceded by	Shaun Woodward
Majority	22,740 (39.4%)
Personal details
Born	David William Donald Cameron (1966-10-09) 9 October 1966 (age 45) London, England
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	Samantha Sheffield (1996–present)
Children	Ivan Reginald Ian (Deceased) Nancy Gwen Arthur Elwen Florence Rose Endellion
Residence	10 Downing Street
Alma mater	Brasenose College, Oxford
Religion	Church of England (Anglican)
Website	Party website

David William Donald Cameron (pronunciation: /ˈkæmərən/; born 9 October 1966) is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. He represents Witney as its Member of Parliament (MP).^[1]

Cameron studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Oxford, gaining a first class honours degree. He then joined the Conservative Research Department and became Special Adviser to Norman Lamont, and then to Michael Howard. He was Director of Corporate Affairs at Carlton Communications for seven years.

He was defeated in his first candidacy for Parliament at Stafford in 1997, but was elected in 2001 as the Member of Parliament for the Oxfordshire constituency of Witney. He was promoted to the Opposition front bench two years later, and rose rapidly to become head of policy co-ordination during the 2005 general election campaign. With a public image of a youthful, moderate candidate who would appeal to young voters, he won the Conservative leadership election in 2005.^[2]

In the 2010 general election held on 6 May, the Conservatives won 307 seats in a hung parliament. After five days of intense negotiations, Cameron formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. The 43-year-old Cameron became the youngest British Prime Minister since the Earl of Liverpool 198 years earlier.^[3] Cameron leads the first coalition government of the United Kingdom since the Second World War.

Family[link]

David Cameron is the younger son of stockbroker Ian Donald Cameron (12 October 1932 – 8 September 2010)^[4] and his wife Mary Fleur (née Mount, born 1934,^[5] a retired Justice of the Peace, daughter of Sir William Mount, 2nd Baronet).^[6] His father, Ian, was born with both legs deformed and underwent repeated operations to correct them. Cameron's parents were married on 20 October 1962.^[5] He was born in London, and brought up in Peasemore, Berkshire.^[7] Cameron has a brother, Allan Alexander (born 1963, a barrister and QC)^[8] and two sisters, Tania Rachel (born 1965) and Clare Louise (born 1971).^[5][9] His father was born at Blairmore House, a country house near Huntly, Aberdeenshire, and died near Toulon in France on 8 September 2010.^[10] Blairmore was built by his great-great-grandfather, Alexander Geddes,^[11] who had made a fortune in the grain trade in Chicago, and returned to Scotland in the 1880s.^[12]

King William IV, one of Cameron's ancestors

Through his paternal grandmother, Enid Agnes Maud Levita, Cameron is a direct descendant of King William IV by his mistress Dorothea Jordan. This illegitimate line consists of five generations of women starting with Elizabeth Hay, Countess of Erroll, née FitzClarence, William and Jordan's sixth child,^[13] through to Cameron's grandmother (thereby making Cameron a 5th cousin of Queen Elizabeth II).^[14] Cameron's paternal forebears also have a long history in finance. His father Ian was senior partner of the stockbrokers Panmure Gordon, in which firm partnerships had long been held by Cameron's ancestors, including David's grandfather and great-grandfather,^[9] and was a Director of estate agent John D. Wood. David Cameron's great-great grandfather Emile Levita, a German-Jewish financier (and descendant of Renaissance scholar Elia Levita) who obtained British citizenship in 1871, was the director of the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China which became Standard Chartered Bank in 1969.^[14] His wife, Cameron's great-great grandmother, was a descendant of the wealthy Danish Jewish Rée family on her father's side.^[15][16] One of Emile's sons, Arthur Francis Levita (died 1910, brother of Sir Cecil Levita),^[17] of Panmure Gordon stockbrokers, together with great-great-grandfather Sir Ewen Cameron,^[18] London head of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, played key roles in arranging loans supplied by the Rothschilds to the Japanese Central Banker (later Prime Minister) Takahashi Korekiyo for the financing of the Japanese Government in the Russo-Japanese war.^[19]

Cameron's maternal grandfather was Sir William Mount, 2nd Baronet, an Army officer and the High Sheriff of Berkshire, and Cameron's maternal great-grandfather was Sir William Mount, 1st Baronet, CBE, Conservative MP for Newbury 1918–1922. Cameron's great-great grandmother was Lady Ida Matilda Alice Feilding. His great-great-great grandfather was William Feilding, 7th Earl of Denbigh, GCH, PC, a courtier and Gentleman of the Bedchamber.^[20] His mother's cousin, Sir Ferdinand Mount, was head of 10 Downing Street's Policy Unit in the early 1980s. Cameron is the nephew of Sir William Dugdale, brother-in-law of Katherine, Lady Dugdale (died 2004) Lady-in-Waiting to HM The Queen since 1955,^[21][22] and former Chairman of Aston Villa Football Club. Birmingham born documentary film-maker Joshua Dugdale is his cousin.^[23]

Education[link]

Eton College chapel.

From the age of seven, Cameron was educated at two independent schools: at Heatherdown Preparatory School at Winkfield, in Berkshire, which counts Prince Andrew and Prince Edward among its alumni. Due to good academic grades, Cameron entered its top academic class almost two years early.^[24] At the age of thirteen, he went to Eton College in Berkshire, following his father and elder brother.^[25] Eton is often described as the most famous independent school in the world,^[26] and "the chief nurse of England's statesmen".^[27] His early interest was in art. Cameron was in trouble as a teenager, six weeks before taking his O-Levels, when he was named as having smoked cannabis.^[2] He admitted the offence and had not been involved in selling drugs, so he was not expelled, but was fined, prevented from leaving school grounds, and given a "Georgic" (a punishment which involved copying 500 lines of Latin text).^[28]

Cameron passed 12 O-levels, and then studied three A-Levels in History of Art, History and Economics with Politics. He obtained three 'A' grades and a '1' grade in the Scholarship Level exam in Economics and Politics.^[29] The following autumn he passed the entrance exam for Oxford University, where he was offered an exhibition.^[30]

After leaving Eton in 1984,^[31] Cameron started a nine month gap year. He worked as a researcher for Tim Rathbone, Conservative MP for Lewes and his godfather. In his three months he attended debates in the House of Commons.^[32] Through his father, he was then employed for a further three months in Hong Kong by Jardine Matheson as a 'ship jumper', an administrative post.^[33]

Returning from Hong Kong he visited the then Soviet Union, where he was approached by two Russian men speaking fluent English. Cameron was later told by one of his professors that it was 'definitely an attempt' by the KGB to recruit him.^[34]

Cameron then began his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) at Brasenose College, Oxford.^[35] His tutor, Professor Vernon Bogdanor, described him as "one of the ablest"^[36] students he has taught, with "moderate and sensible Conservative" political views.^[9] Guy Spier, who shared tutorials with him, remembers him as an outstanding student; "We were doing our best to grasp basic economic concepts. David - there was nobody else who came even close. He would be integrating them with the way the British political system is put together. He could have lectured me on it, and I would have sat there and taken notes.."^[37] When commenting in 2006 on his former pupil's ideas about a "Bill of Rights" to replace the Human Rights Act, however, Professor Bogdanor, himself a Liberal Democrat, said, "I think he is very confused. I've read his speech and it's filled with contradictions. There are one or two good things in it but one glimpses them, as it were, through a mist of misunderstanding".^[38]

While at Oxford, Cameron was a member of the elite student dining society the Bullingdon Club, which has a reputation for an outlandish drinking culture associated with boisterous behaviour and damaging property.^[39] A photograph showing Cameron in a tailcoat with other members of the club, including Boris Johnson, surfaced in 2007, but was later withdrawn by the copyright holder.^[40] Cameron's period in the Bullingdon Club is examined in the Channel 4 docu-drama When Boris Met Dave broadcast on 7 October 2009.^[41] Cameron graduated in 1988 with a first class honours degree.^[42]

Early political career[link]

Conservative Research Department[link]

After graduation, Cameron worked for the Conservative Research Department between September 1988^[43] and 1993. A feature on Cameron in The Mail on Sunday on 18 March 2007 reported that on the day he was due to attend a job interview at Conservative Central Office, a phone call was received from Buckingham Palace. The male caller stated, "I understand you are to see David Cameron. I've tried everything I can to dissuade him from wasting his time on politics but I have failed. I am ringing to tell you that you are about to meet a truly remarkable young man."^[44]

In 1991, Cameron was seconded to Downing Street to work on briefing John Major for his then bi-weekly session of Prime Minister's Questions. One newspaper gave Cameron the credit for "sharper [...] despatch box performances" by Major,^[45] which included highlighting for Major "a dreadful piece of doublespeak" by Tony Blair (then the Labour Employment spokesman) over the effect of a national minimum wage.^[46] He became head of the political section of the Conservative Research Department, and in August 1991 was tipped to follow Judith Chaplin as Political Secretary to the Prime Minister.^[47]

However, Cameron lost to Jonathan Hill, who was appointed in March 1992. He was given the responsibility for briefing Major for his press conferences during the 1992 general election.^[48] During the campaign, Cameron was one of the young "brat pack" of party strategists who worked between 12 and 20 hours a day, sleeping in the house of Alan Duncan in Gayfere Street, Westminster, which had been Major's campaign headquarters during his bid for the Conservative leadership.^[49] Cameron headed the economic section; it was while working on this campaign that Cameron first worked closely with Steve Hilton, who was later to become Director of Strategy during his party leadership.^[50] The strain of getting up at 4:45 am every day was reported to have led Cameron to decide to leave politics in favour of journalism.^[51]

Special Adviser[link]

The Conservatives' unexpected success in the 1992 election led Cameron to hit back at older party members who had criticised him and his colleagues, saying "whatever people say about us, we got the campaign right," and that they had listened to their campaign workers on the ground rather than the newspapers. He revealed he had led other members of the team across Smith Square to jeer at Transport House, the former Labour headquarters.^[52] Cameron was rewarded with a promotion to Special Adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont.^[53]

Cameron was working for Lamont at the time of Black Wednesday, when pressure from currency speculators forced the Pound sterling out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. At the 1992 Conservative Party conference, Cameron had difficulty trying to arrange to brief the speakers in the economic debate, having to resort to putting messages on the internal television system imploring the mover of the motion, Patricia Morris, to contact him.^[54] Later that month Cameron joined a delegation of Special Advisers who visited Germany to build better relations with the Christian Democratic Union; he was reported to be "still smarting" over the Bundesbank's contribution to the economic crisis.^[55]

Lamont fell out with John Major after Black Wednesday and became highly unpopular with the public. Taxes needed to be raised in the 1993 Budget, and Cameron fed the options Lamont was considering through to Conservative Central Office for their political acceptability to be assessed.^[56] However, Lamont's unpopularity did not necessarily affect Cameron: he was considered as a potential "kamikaze" candidate for the Newbury By-election, which includes the area where he grew up.^[57] However, Cameron decided not to stand.

During the by-election, Lamont gave the response "Je ne regrette rien" to a question about whether he most regretted claiming to see "the green shoots of recovery" or admitted "singing in his bath" with happiness at leaving the ERM. Cameron was identified by one journalist as having inspired this gaffe; it was speculated that the heavy Conservative defeat in Newbury may have cost Cameron his chance of becoming Chancellor himself, even though as he was not a Member of Parliament he could not have been.^[58] Lamont was sacked at the end of May 1993, and decided not to write the usual letter of resignation; Cameron was given the responsibility to issue to the press a statement of self-justification.^[59]

Home Office[link]

The Home Office building Cameron worked at during the 1990s

After Lamont was sacked, Cameron remained at the Treasury for less than a month before being specifically recruited by Home Secretary Michael Howard; it was commented that he was still "very much in favour".^[60] It was later reported that many at the Treasury would have preferred Cameron to carry on.^[61] At the beginning of September 1993, Cameron applied to go on Conservative Central Office's list of Prospective Parliamentary Candidates.^[62]

According to Derek Lewis, then Director-General of Her Majesty's Prison Service, Cameron showed him a "his and hers list" of proposals made by Howard and his wife, Sandra. Lewis said that Sandra Howard's list included reducing the quality of prison food, although Sandra Howard denied this claim. Lewis reported that Cameron was "uncomfortable" about the list.^[63] In defending Sandra Howard and insisting that she made no such proposal, the journalist Bruce Anderson wrote that Cameron had proposed a much shorter definition on prison catering which revolved around the phrase "balanced diet", and that Lewis had written thanking Cameron for a valuable contribution.^[64]

During his work for Howard, Cameron often briefed the media. In March 1994, someone leaked to the Press that the Labour Party had called for a meeting with John Major to discuss a consensus on the Prevention of Terrorism Act. After an enquiry failed to find the source of the leak, Labour MP Peter Mandelson demanded assurance from Howard that Cameron had not been responsible, which Howard gave.^[65][66] A senior Home Office Civil Servant noted the influence of Howard's Special Advisers saying previous incumbents "would listen to the evidence before making a decision. Howard just talks to young public school gentlemen from the party headquarters."^[67]

Carlton[link]

In July 1994, Cameron left his role as Special Adviser to work as the Director of Corporate Affairs at Carlton Communications.^[68] Carlton, which had won the ITV franchise for London weekdays in 1991, was a growing media company which also had film distribution and video producing arms. In 1997 Cameron played up the Company's prospects for digital terrestrial television, for which it joined with Granada television and BSkyB to form British Digital Broadcasting.^[69] In a roundtable discussion on the future of broadcasting in 1998 he criticised the effect of overlapping different regulators on the industry.^[70]

Carlton's consortium did win the digital terrestrial franchise but the resulting company suffered difficulties in attracting subscribers. In 1999 the Express on Sunday newspaper claimed Cameron had rubbished one of its stories which had given an accurate number of subscribers, because he wanted the number to appear higher than expected.^[71] Cameron resigned as Director of Corporate Affairs in February 2001 in order to fight for election to Parliament, although he remained on the payroll as a consultant.^[72]

Parliamentary candidacy[link]

Stafford, the constituency Cameron contested in 1997

Having been approved for the Candidates' list, Cameron began looking for a seat. He was reported to have missed out on selection for Ashford in December 1994 after failing to get to the selection meeting as a result of train delays.^[73] Early in 1996, he was selected for Stafford, a new constituency created by boundary changes, which was projected to have a Conservative majority.^[74] At the 1996 Conservative Party Conference he called for tax cuts in the forthcoming Budget to be targeted at the low paid and to "small businesses where people took money out of their own pockets to put into companies to keep them going".^[75] He also said the Party, "Should be proud of the Tory tax record but that people needed reminding of its achievements ... It's time to return to our tax cutting agenda. The socialist Prime Ministers of Europe have endorsed Tony Blair because they want a federal pussy cat and not a British lion."^[76]

When writing his election address, Cameron made his own opposition to British membership of the single European currency clear, pledging not to support it. This was a break with official Conservative policy but about 200 other candidates were making similar declarations.^[77] Otherwise, Cameron kept very closely to the national party line. He also campaigned using the claim that a Labour Government would increase the cost of a pint of beer by 24p; however the Labour candidate David Kidney portrayed Cameron as "a right-wing Tory". Stafford had a swing almost the same as the national swing, which made it one of the many seats to fall to Labour: David Kidney had a majority of 4,314.^[78][79]

In the round of selection contests taking place in the run-up to the 2001 general election, Cameron again attempted to be selected for a winnable seat. He tried out for the Kensington and Chelsea seat after the death of Alan Clark,^[80] but did not make the shortlist.

He was in the final two but narrowly lost at Wealden in March 2000,^[81] a loss ascribed by Samantha Cameron to his lack of spontaneity when speaking.^[82]

On 4 April 2000 Cameron was selected as prospective candidate (PPC) for Witney in Oxfordshire. This had been a safe Conservative seat but its sitting MP Shaun Woodward (who had worked with Cameron on the 1992 election campaign) had "crossed the floor" to join the Labour Party; newspapers claimed Cameron and Woodward had "loathed each other",^[83] although Cameron's biographers Francis Elliott and James Hanning describe them as being "on fairly friendly terms".^[84] Cameron put a great deal of effort into "nursing" his potential constituency, turning up at social functions, and attacking Woodward for changing his mind on fox hunting to support a ban.^[85]

During the election campaign, Cameron accepted the offer of writing a regular column for The Guardian's online section.^[86] He won the seat with a 1.9% swing to the Conservatives and a majority of 7,973.^[87][88]

Member of Parliament[link]

Upon his election to Parliament, he served as a member of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, a prominent appointment for a newly elected MP. Cameron's proposed that the Committee launch an inquiry into the law on drugs,^[89] and urged the consideration of "radical options".^[90] The report recommended a downgrading of Ecstasy from Class A to Class B, as well as moves towards a policy of 'harm reduction', which Cameron defended.^[91]

Cameron determinedly attempted to increase his public profile, offering quotations on matters of public controversy. He opposed the payment of compensation to Gurbux Singh, who had resigned as head of the Commission for Racial Equality after a confrontation with the police;^[92] and commented that the Home Affairs Select Committee had taken a long time to discuss whether the phrase "black market" should be used.^[93] However, he was passed over for a front bench promotion in July 2002; Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith did invite Cameron and his ally George Osborne to coach him on Prime Minister's Questions in November 2002. The next week, Cameron deliberately abstained in a vote on allowing same-sex and unmarried couples to adopt children jointly, against a whip to oppose; his abstention was noted.^[94] The wide scale of abstentions and rebellious votes destabilised the Iain Duncan Smith leadership.

In June 2003, Cameron was appointed as a shadow minister in the Privy Council Office as a deputy to Eric Forth, who was then Shadow Leader of the House. He also became a vice-chairman of the Conservative Party when Michael Howard took over the leadership in November of that year. He was appointed as the Opposition frontbench local government spokesman in 2004, before being promoted into the shadow cabinet that June as head of policy co-ordination. Later, he became Shadow Education Secretary in the post-election reshuffle.^[95]

From February 2002^[96] until August 2005 he was a non-executive director of Urbium PLC, operator of the Tiger Tiger bar chain.^[97]

Leadership of the Conservative Party[link]

David Cameron campaigning for the 2006 local elections in Newcastle upon Tyne

Leadership election[link]

Following the Labour victory in the May 2005 general election, Michael Howard announced his resignation as leader of the Conservative Party and set a lengthy timetable for the leadership election. Cameron announced formally that he would be a candidate for the position on 29 September 2005. Parliamentary colleagues supporting him initially included Boris Johnson, Shadow Chancellor George Osborne, then Shadow Defence Secretary and deputy leader of the party Michael Ancram, Oliver Letwin^[98] and former party leader William Hague.^[99] Despite this, his campaign did not gain significant support prior to the 2005 Conservative Party Conference. However his speech, delivered without notes, proved a significant turning point. In the speech he vowed to make people, "feel good about being Conservatives again" and said he wanted, "to switch on a whole new generation."^[100]

In the first ballot of Conservative MPs on 18 October 2005, Cameron came second, with 56 votes, slightly more than expected; David Davis had fewer than predicted at 62 votes; Liam Fox came third with 42 votes and Kenneth Clarke was eliminated with 38 votes. In the second ballot on 20 October 2005, Cameron came first with 90 votes; David Davis was second, with 57, and Liam Fox was eliminated with 51 votes.^[101] All 198 Conservative MPs voted in both ballots.

The next stage of the election process, between Davis and Cameron, was a vote open to the entire Conservative party membership. Cameron was elected with more than twice as many votes as Davis and more than half of all ballots issued; Cameron won 134,446 votes on a 78% turnout, beating Davis's 64,398 votes.^[102] Although Davis had initially been the favourite, it was widely acknowledged that Davis's candidacy was marred by a disappointing conference speech, whilst Cameron's was well received. Cameron's election as the Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition was announced on 6 December 2005. As is customary for an Opposition leader not already a member, upon election Cameron became a member of the Privy Council, being formally approved to join on 14 December 2005, and sworn of the Council on 8 March 2006.^[103]

Cameron's appearance on the cover of Time in September 2008 was said by the Daily Mail to present him to the world as 'Prime Minister in waiting'.^[104]

Reaction to Cameron as leader[link]

Cameron being interviewed at the headquarters of Oxfam in 2006.

Cameron's relative youth and inexperience before becoming leader have invited satirical comparison with Tony Blair. Private Eye soon published a picture of both leaders on their front cover, with the caption "World's first face transplant a success".^[105] On the left, New Statesman has unfavourably likened his "new style of politics" to Tony Blair's early leadership years.^[106] Cameron is accused of paying excessive attention to image, with ITV News broadcasting footage from the 2006 Conservative Party Conference in Bournemouth which showed him wearing four different sets of clothes within the space of a few hours.^[107] Cameron was characterised in a Labour Party political broadcast as "Dave the Chameleon", who would change what he said to match the expectations of his audience. Cameron later claimed that the broadcast had become his daughter's "favourite video".^[108] He has also been described by comedy writer and broadcaster Charlie Brooker as being "like a hollow Easter egg with no bag of sweets inside" in his Guardian column.^[109]

On the right, Norman Tebbit, former Chairman of the Conservative Party, has likened Cameron to Pol Pot, "intent on purging even the memory of Thatcherism before building a New Modern Compassionate Green Globally Aware Party".^[110] Quentin Davies MP, who defected from the Conservatives to Labour on 26 June 2007, branded him "superficial, unreliable and [with] an apparent lack of any clear convictions" and stated that David Cameron had turned the Conservative Party's mission into a "PR agenda".^[111] Traditionalist conservative columnist and author Peter Hitchens has written that, "Mr Cameron has abandoned the last significant difference between his party and the established left", by embracing social liberalism^[112] and has dubbed the party under his leadership "Blue Labour", a pun on New Labour.^[113] Cameron responded by calling Hitchens a "maniac".^[114] Daily Telegraph correspondent and blogger Gerald Warner has been particularly scathing about Cameron's leadership, arguing that it is alienating traditionalist conservative elements from the Conservative Party.^[115]

Cameron is reported to be known to friends and family as "Dave", though he invariably uses "David'" in public.^[116] Critics often refer to him as "Call me Dave", implying populism in the same way as "Call me Tony" was used in 1997.^[117] The Times columnist Daniel Finkelstein has condemned those who attempt to belittle Cameron by calling him 'Dave'.^[118]

Shadow Cabinet appointments[link]

Cameron speaking at the Home Office, on 13 May 2010.

His Shadow Cabinet appointments have included MPs associated with the various wings of the party. Former leader William Hague was appointed to the Foreign Affairs brief, while both George Osborne and David Davis were retained, as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer and Shadow Home Secretary respectively. Hague, assisted by Davis, stood in for Cameron during his paternity leave in February 2006.^[119] In June 2008 Davis announced his intention to resign as an MP, and was immediately replaced as Shadow Home Secretary by Dominic Grieve, the surprise move seen as a challenge to the changes introduced under Cameron's leadership.^[120]

David Cameron with Theresa May, who was a member of the Shadow Cabinet from 1999 until 2010.

In January 2009 a reshuffle of the Shadow Cabinet was undertaken. The chief change was the appointment of former Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke as Shadow Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Secretary, David Cameron stating that "With Ken Clarke's arrival, we now have the best economic team." The reshuffle saw eight other changes made.^[121]

European Conservatives and Reformists[link]

During his successful campaign to be elected Leader of the Conservative Party, Cameron pledged that the Conservative Party's Members of the European Parliament would leave the European People's Party group, which had a "federalist" approach to the European Union.^[122] Once elected Cameron began discussions with right-wing and eurosceptic parties in other European countries, mainly in eastern Europe, and in July 2006 he concluded an agreement to form the Movement for European Reform with the Czech Civic Democratic Party, leading to the formation of a new European Parliament group, the European Conservatives and Reformists, in 2009 after the European Parliament elections.^[123] Cameron attended a gathering at Warsaw's Palladium cinema celebrating the foundation of the alliance.^[124]

In forming the caucus, which had 54 MEPs drawn from eight of the 27 EU member states, Cameron reportedly broke with two decades of Conservative cooperation with the centre-right Christian Democrats, the European People's Party (EPP),^[125] on the grounds that they are dominated by European federalists and supporters of the Lisbon treaty.^[125] EPP leader Wilfried Martens, former prime minister of Belgium, has stated "Cameron's campaign has been to take his party back to the centre in every policy area with one major exception: Europe. ... I can't understand his tactics. Merkel and Sarkozy will never accept his Euroscepticism."^[125] The left-wing New Statesman magazine reported that the US administration had "concerns about Cameron among top members of the team" and quoted David Rothkopf in saying that the issue "makes Cameron an even more dubious choice to be Britain's next prime minister than he was before and, should he attain that post, someone about whom the Obama administration ought to be very cautious."^[126]