David Cameron

David Cameron was born in London in 1966 and studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford. He worked in the Conservative Research Department, as a government adviser and in media before becoming MP for Witney in 2001. Elected Conservative leader in 2005, he sought to modernise the party's image. He became Prime Minister in May 2010 at the head of the first coalition government since the war and won an outright majority in 2015. He led the campaign to remain in the European Union, resigned after the June 2016 vote to leave and left the Commons that year. He returned as Foreign Secretary in November 2023 with a life peerage and left government in July 2024. He is a former Prime Minister and sits in the House of Lords without a front-bench role.

Supporters credit Cameron with modernising the Conservative Party, reducing the deficit, legalising same-sex marriage, keeping Scotland in the Union in 2014 and winning the first Conservative majority since 1992. Critics argue that austerity cut public services and welfare too deeply, that the Libya intervention left a power vacuum, and above all that he called a referendum on EU membership and lost it, leading to Brexit. After leaving office he faced criticism in 2021 for lobbying ministers on behalf of the finance firm Greensill Capital; a parliamentary inquiry found no breach of rules but questioned his judgement.