History UsefulNotes / DavidCameron

While Cameron oversaw stability, excellent fiscal management, the successful [[UsefulNotes/OlympicGames 2012 Summer Olympics]] in London, and the UK emerging from the Great Recession as one of the EU's stronger economies, his letting the Brexit genie out of the bottle undoes nearly all the good he may have done and in popular eyes defines his legacy much like UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden and the Suez Crisis. The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst" and that it will take a miracle for historical perspective ever to get much kinder. (Just after he resigned, a [[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-worst-prime-minister-ranking-third-since-ww2-a7358171.html University of Leeds-led study]] rated him Britain's third-worst prime minister since [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the Second World War]], indeed naming his Brexit gamble "the greatest failure of any Prime Minister since UsefulNotes/LordNorth [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution lost America]]", with only Eden and UsefulNotes/AlecDouglasHome ranking below him overall.) His reputation did improve ''slightly'' after he left office, since he was an effective party leader at least: when he assumed leadership, it had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade, and he left it with a working majority in the House of Commons, which [[UsefulNotes/TheresaMay his successor]] helped squander in less than a year. The pendulum swung against him again, though, since ''her'' successor, UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson, actively repudiated many of his 'image rehabilitation' strategies, called another snap election in 2019, abandoned the austerity agenda, and was rewarded with the Conservatives' largest parliamentary majority since 1987 and their (and indeed ''the'') highest share of the vote since 1979.[[note]]Among other factors, the Johnson Tories campaigned on a manifesto called ''Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain's Potential'', capitalising on general feeling that the democratic outcome from three and a half years before ought to have been executed already, while Labour tried to appeal to Leave and Remain voters simultaneously (that party was in arguably the most difficult position, with its membership inside and outside Parliament being split in having anti-Brexit, 'soft-Brexit', and 'hard-Brexit' stances) by promising to negotiate a new Brexit deal to be proposed as the Leave option at a second referendum in 2020. The Tories won many hitherto safe-for-Labour seats in northern England that had voted Leave in 2016. This was also helped by Farage's Brexit Party, supposedly acting on the orders of UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump, agreeing only to campaign in non-Conservative seats to focus on draining votes from traditional Labour voters.[[/note]]

He became mired in controversy during 2021 when it turned out he'd used his old Government connections to assist the company Greensill, leading to the nickname UsefulNotes/DennisSkinner once used for him, Dodgy Dave, being trotted out again.

Like many prime ministers before him, he attended Eton College and Oxford University as a youth. At the latter, he was a member of the Bullingdon Club and possibly the Piers Gaveston Society, ''two'' invite-only students' drinking clubs renowned for being seriously posh and seriously destructive.[[note]]It's never been confirmed or denied, obviously, but legend has it the initiation ritual for the PGS involved pledges' genitalia and a pig's head.[[/note]] After graduating, he worked in the UsefulNotes/JohnMajor government as a special adviser, first to Major himself and later to powerful ministers Norman Lamont and Michael Howard, then worked in public relations.

In 2001, he became MP for Witney (the previous member, Shaun Woodward, had defected to the Labour Party, which was rather unpopular in rural Oxfordshire, and so he was parachuted into the safe Labour seat of Saint Helens South). He then became the ringleader of a clique of young Tory [=MPs=] called the Notting Hill set, so named for the fashionable neighbourhood (featured in the film of [[Film/NottingHill the same name]]) where they all lived. Other members of this group included George Osborne and Michael Gove, who subsequently served in his ministry as Chancellor and Education secretary respectively.

After the Conservatives lost the 2005 election, Michael Howard announced his resignation as Conservative leader, necessitating a leadership election. Cameron ran for leader and beat another David, David Davis. He spent nearly five years as leader of the opposition, rebuilding the image of the UK's historically most successful party, albeit a party now shattered by three straight electoral defeats, with some policy moves not welcomed by the more traditional branch of the party. He also suffered a family tragedy in 2009, with the death of his six-year-old son Ivan, who had been born severely disabled.

During the coalition government, Cameron came under criticism for not being able to achieve a more decisive and conclusive victory against a largely unpopular incumbent. Many of his policies were also incredibly unpopular, attracting criticism and protest. In the lead up to the 2015 election, Cameron deflected much of the criticism onto the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, their leader. It helped that many Lib Dem supporters disagreed with Labour but did not want a Conservative government, so Clegg's decision to get into bed with Cameron soured their attitudes. While Cameron and his party were not the most popular people ever, support for Clegg and the Lib Dems plummeted as people came to see them as lapdogs for the Conservatives.

As the [[UsefulNotes/UnitedKingdomGeneralElection2015 2015 election]] approached, the biggest danger to the Cameron Conservatives was generally seen to be not Labour -- Ed Miliband's leadership of that party often being seen as divisive and ineffectual -- but rather the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which had adopted a much harder-right-wing set of policies and made huge gains in local and European elections and which people thought might split the Conservative vote and bring Labour back to government despite itself. On top of that, the Lib Dems were predicted to fare poorly, making it unlikely that Cameron could call on anyone else to form a coalition.[[note]]Not that he likely would have, since his party is fully called the "Conservative and Unionist Party", the latter adjective emphasising how much they favour British integration, and the next biggest parties are for Welsh, Northern Irish, and especially Scottish independence.[[/note]] During the election campaign, Cameron promised a referendum on British membership of UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion (which he personally supported). It's generally believed that he expected only to retain power via a new Conservative-Liberal coalition and was making a promise that he assumed he'd never have to keep to prevent Eurosceptic Tory voters from defecting to UKIP.

The Conservatives, surprising most people, won 330 seats, giving them an overall 12-seat majority. Cameron, therefore, remained as prime minister. The election results also saw three other party leaders -- Clegg (who was one of only eight Lib Dem [=MPs=] returned), Miliband (who suffered a string of publicity gaffes) and UKIP's Nigel Farage (who wasn't elected to the Commons) -- resign, although Farage later rescinded his resignation due to the party's sole MP not wanting to stand for the leadership. As Cameron entered Buckingham Palace at 12:28, the Conservatives only needed one to win a majority, which they formally got soon after.

While Cameron oversaw stability, excellent fiscal management, the successful 2012 Summer Olympics in London and the UK emerging from the Great Recession as one of the EU's stronger economies, his letting the Brexit genie out of the bottle undoes nearly all the good he may have done and is seen as defining his legacy much like UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden and the Suez Crisis. The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst" and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective ever to get much kinder. (Just after he resigned, a [[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-worst-prime-minister-ranking-third-since-ww2-a7358171.html University of Leeds-led study]] rated him Britain's third-worst prime minister since [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the Second World War]], indeed naming his Brexit gamble "the greatest failure of any Prime Minister since UsefulNotes/LordNorth [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution lost America]]", with only Eden and UsefulNotes/AlecDouglasHome ranking below him overall.) His reputation did improve ''slightly'' after he left office, since he was an effective party leader at least: when he assumed leadership, it had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade, and he left it with a working majority in the House of Commons, which [[UsefulNotes/TheresaMay his successor]] helped squander in less than a year. The pendulum swung against him again, since ''her'' successor, UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson, actively repudiated many of his 'image rehabilitation' strategies, called another snap election in 2019, abandoned the austerity agenda, and was rewarded with the Conservatives' largest parliamentary majority since 1987 and their (and indeed ''the'') highest share of the vote since 1979.[[note]]Among other factors, the Johnson Tories campaigned on a manifesto called ''Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain's Potential'', capitalising on general feeling that the democratic outcome ought to have been executed already, while Labour tried to appeal to Leave and Remain voters simultaneously (that party was in arguably the most difficult position, with its membership inside and outside Parliament being split in having anti-Brexit, 'soft-Brexit', and 'hard-Brexit' stances) by promising to negotiate a new Brexit deal to be proposed as the Leave option at a second referendum in 2020. The Tories won many hitherto safe-for-Labour seats in northern England that had voted Leave in 2016. This was also helped by Farage's Brexit Party, supposedly acting on the orders of UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump, agreeing only to campaign in non-Conservative seats to focus on draining votes from traditional Labour voters.[[/note]]

* [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ComicBook/DoctorWhoTitan Doctor Who Titan Comics]] with their 2015 comic [[ComicBook/DoctorWhoTitanTwelfthDoctor Clara Oswald and the School of Death]] had an [[PresidentEvil evil Prime Minister]] who was really a Sea Devil in disguise. His name Daniel Claremont makes him come across as a caricature of Daniel Cameron. Added to that he is mentioned as having gone to the same Private School as half his Cabinet, which is really turning the pupils into Sea Devils, in a satirisation of the British Public School System.

By all reports, he makes a killing as a public speaker. Unlike fellow former [=PM=]s John Major and Tony Blair, who made headlines during the 2019 election campaign denouncing then-leaders Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn, he has continued to support his party and even (tepidly) endorsed their Brexit strategy. He continues to argue that calling the referendum was a good idea, though he also still thinks Remain was the better choice.

While Cameron oversaw stability, excellent fiscal management, and the UK emerging from the Great Recession as one of the EU's stronger economies, his letting the Brexit genie out of the bottle undoes nearly all the good he may have done and is seen as defining his legacy much like UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden and the Suez Crisis. The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst" and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective ever to get much kinder. (Just after he resigned, a [[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-worst-prime-minister-ranking-third-since-ww2-a7358171.html University of Leeds-led study]] rated him Britain's third-worst prime minister since [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the Second World War]], indeed naming his Brexit gamble "the greatest failure of any Prime Minister since UsefulNotes/LordNorth [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution lost America]]", with only Eden and UsefulNotes/AlecDouglasHome ranking below him overall.) His reputation did improve ''slightly'' after he left office, since he was an effective party leader at least: when he assumed leadership, it had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade, and he left it with a working majority in the House of Commons, which [[UsefulNotes/TheresaMay his successor]] helped squander in less than a year. The pendulum swung against him again, since ''her'' successor, UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson, actively repudiated many of his 'image rehabilitation' strategies, called another snap election in 2019, abandoned the austerity agenda, and was rewarded with the Conservatives' largest parliamentary majority since 1987 and their (and indeed ''the'') highest share of the vote since 1979.[[note]]Among other factors, the Johnson Tories campaigned on a manifesto called ''Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain's Potential'', capitalising on general feeling that the democratic outcome ought to have been executed already, while Labour tried to appeal to Leave and Remain voters simultaneously (that party was in arguably the most difficult position, with its membership inside and outside Parliament being split in having anti-Brexit, 'soft-Brexit', and 'hard-Brexit' stances) by promising to negotiate a new Brexit deal to be proposed as the Leave option at a second referendum in 2020. The Tories won many hitherto safe-for-Labour seats in northern England that had voted Leave in 2016. This was also helped by Farage's Brexit Party, supposedly acting on the orders of UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump, agreeing only to campaign in non-Conservative seats to focus on draining votes from traditional Labour voters.[[/note]]

David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a former British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. He was also the leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He was the first Conservative PM of the 21st century and the {{young|AndInCharge}}est since UsefulNotes/LordLiverpool in 1812, in the latter case coming under UsefulNotes/TonyBlair's distinction by being 147 days younger when he was first appointed.

In 2001, he became MP for Witney (the previous member, Shaun Woodward, had defected to the Labour Party, which was rather unpopular in rural Oxfordshire, and so he was parachuted into the safe Labour seat of Saint Helens South). He then became the ringleader of a clique of young Tory [=MPs=] called the Notting Hill set, so named for the fashionable neighbourhood ([[Film/NottingHill featured in the film of the same name]]) where they all lived. Other members of this group included George Osborne and Michael Gove, who subsequently served in his ministry as Chancellor and Education secretary respectively.

Cameron looked likely to become PM from the start of the global recession onwards, but his lead steadily declined, mostly thanks to the impression that what he was offering amounted to a retread of UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher's divisive policies, and a strong performance by Liberal Democrat leader UsefulNotes/NickClegg in the first televised leaders' debates in British electoral history (which didn't lead to the huge gain that his party expected) proved enough to produce a hung parliament, which ended with the Conservatives winning the most votes and 306 out of 650 seats. When UsefulNotes/GordonBrown couldn't negotiate a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition, Cameron succeeded him as prime minister, leading a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government -- the UK's first formal coalition government since the all-party government UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill led back in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. It made a line from [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7567513.stm a 2008 interview]] with Cameron retroactively HilariousInHindsight: when asked what his favourite political joke was, he replied, "Nick Clegg, at the moment."

Later that year, Conservative peer Michael Ashcroft published a book that infamously accused him of having engaged in certain activities with a dead pig's head as part of an initiation ritual to the previously mentioned Piers Gaveston Society. Regardless of whether the allegations are true, it's led to its share of jokes, especially as a result of certain scenes in ''Series/BlackMirror'': [[Recap/BlackMirrorTheNationalAnthem "The National Anthem."]]

Like Thatcher and Major before him, Cameron lost his premiership largely thanks to [[UsefulNotes/WithEuropeButNotOfIt Britain's complicated relationship with the EU]]. Having already taken a blow to his reputation from at least two attempts to cut benefits to low-paid workers and people with disabilities while handing out tax cuts to big businesses, Cameron had to fulfil his election promise to call a referendum on the UK's continued membership of the EU for 23 June 2016. The referendum ended in a clear if narrow victory for those who wanted to leave.[[note]]The results were very regionally polarized; Scotland, London, and Northern Ireland favoured remaining by 24, 20, and 11½ per cent respectively, Wales favoured leaving by 5 per cent, and the rest of England favoured leaving by nearly 11 per cent. Across the UK and Gibraltar, "Leave" won the day with 17,410,742 votes (51.9 per cent) to "Remain's" 16,141,241 (48.1 per cent).[[/note]] With Cameron's position already imperilled before the referendum by Eurosceptic Conservatives who made little secret of their intention to call a vote of no confidence in his leadership irrespective of the result, Cameron [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere announced the day after the referendum that he would resign as Conservative leader and prime minister.]] Upon his resignation on 13 July 2016, he was succeeded by UsefulNotes/TheresaMay, who had been Home secretary throughout his ministry. He also resigned from Parliament effective on 12 September, claiming he feared he'd be a distraction to May.

While Cameron oversaw stability, excellent fiscal management, and the UK emerging from the Great Recession as one of the EU's stronger economies, his letting the Brexit genie out of the bottle undoes nearly all the good he may have done and is [[NeverLiveItDown seen as defining his legacy]] much like UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden and the Suez Crisis. The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst" and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective ever to get much kinder. (Just after he resigned, a [[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-worst-prime-minister-ranking-third-since-ww2-a7358171.html University of Leeds-led study]] rated him Britain's third-worst prime minister since [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the Second World War]], indeed naming his Brexit gamble "the greatest failure of any Prime Minister since UsefulNotes/LordNorth [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution lost America]]," with only Eden and UsefulNotes/AlecDouglasHome ranking below him overall.) His reputation did improve ''slightly'' after he left office, since he was an effective party leader at least: when he assumed leadership, it had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade, and he left it with a working majority in the House of Commons, which [[UsefulNotes/TheresaMay his successor]] helped squander in less than a year. But the pendulum might be swinging against him again, since ''her'' successor, UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson, actively repudiated many of his 'image rehabilitation' strategies, called another snap election in 2019, abandoned the austerity agenda, and was rewarded with the Conservatives' largest parliamentary majority since 1987 and their (and indeed ''the'') highest share of the vote since 1979.[[note]]Among other factors, the Johnson Tories campaigned on a manifesto called ''Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain's Potential'', capitalising on general feeling that the democratic outcome ought to have been executed already, while Labour tried to appeal to Leave and Remain voters simultaneously (that party was in arguably the most difficult position, with its membership inside and outside Parliament being split in having anti-Brexit, 'soft-Brexit', and 'hard-Brexit' stances) by promising to negotiate a new Brexit deal to be proposed as the Leave option at a second referendum in 2020. The Tories won many hitherto safe-for-Labour seats in [[OopNorth northern England]] that had voted Leave in 2016. This was also helped by Farage's Brexit Party, supposedly acting on the orders of UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump, agreeing only to campaign in non-Conservative seats to focus on draining votes from traditional Labour voters.[[/note]]

Cameron's generally privileged upbringing and PR background has made him a rich target for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKFTtYx2OHc satire]] and accusations that [[UpperClassTwit he cannot comprehend the lives of ordinary people]]. The fact that he is descended on his mother's side from an illegitimate daughter of [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfHanover King William IV]] apparently [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-462313/Dave-Cameron-says-hes-touch-reality--wealth-blue-blood-wonder.html doesn't help]].

He got involved in controversy during 2021 when it turned out he'd used his old Government connections to assist the company Greensill, leading to the nickname UsefulNotes/DennisSkinner once used for him, Dodgy Dave, being trotted out again.

Like many prime ministers before him, he attended Eton College and Oxford University as a youth. At the latter, he was a member of the Bullingdon Club and the Piers Gaveston Society, ''two'' invite-only students' drinking clubs renowned for being seriously posh and seriously destructive.[[note]]It's never been confirmed or denied, obviously, but legend has it the initiation ritual for the PGS involved pledges' genitalia and a pig's head.[[/note]] After graduating, he worked in the UsefulNotes/JohnMajor government as a special adviser, first to Major himself and later to powerful ministers Norman Lamont and Michael Howard, then worked in public relations.

As the [[UsefulNotes/UnitedKingdomGeneralElection2015 2015 election]] approached, the biggest danger to the Cameron Conservatives was generally seen to be not Labour -- Ed Miliband's leadership of that party often being seen as divisive and ineffectual -- but rather the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which had adopted a much harder-right-wing set of policies and made huge gains in local and European elections and which people thought might split the Conservative vote and bring Labour back to government despite itself. On top of that, the Lib Dems were predicted to fare poorly, making it unlikely that Cameron could call on anyone else to form a coalition.[[note]]Not that he likely would have, since his party is fully called the "Conservative and Unionist Party", the latter adjective emphasising how much they favour British integration, and the next biggest parties are for Welsh, North Irish, and especially Scottish independence.[[/note]] During the election campaign, Cameron promised a referendum on British membership of UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion (which he personally supported). It's generally believed that he expected only to retain power via a new coalition with the Lib Dems and was making a promise that he assumed he'd never have to keep to prevent Euroskeptic Tory voters from defecting to UKIP.

Like Thatcher and Major before him, Cameron lost his premiership largely thanks to [[UsefulNotes/WithEuropeButNotOfIt Britain's complicated relationship with the EU]]. Having already taken a blow to his reputation from at least two attempts to cut benefits to low-paid workers and people with disabilities while handing out tax cuts to big businesses, Cameron had to fulfil his election promise to call a referendum on the UK's continued membership of the EU for 23 June 2016. The referendum ended in a clear if narrow victory for those who wanted to leave.[[note]]The results were very regionally polarized; Scotland, London, and Northern Ireland favoured remaining by 24, 20, and 11½ per cent respectively, Wales favoured leaving by 5 per cent, and the rest of England favoured leaving by nearly 11 per cent. Across the UK and Gibraltar, "Leave" won the day with 17,410,742 votes (51.9 per cent) to "Remain's" 16,141,241 (48.1 per cent).[[/note]] With Cameron's position already imperilled before the referendum by Eurosceptic Conservatives who made little secret of their intention to call a vote of no confidence in his leadership irrespective of the result, Cameron [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere announced the day after the referendum that he would resign as Conservative leader and prime minister.]] Upon his resignation on 13 July 2016, he was succeeded by UsefulNotes/TheresaMay, who had been Home secretary throughout his ministry. He also resigned from Parliament effective on 12 September, claiming he'd be a distraction to May.

While Cameron oversaw stability, excellent fiscal management, and the UK emerging from the Great Recession as one of the EU's stronger economies, his letting the Brexit genie out of the bottle undoes nearly all the good he may have done and is [[NeverLiveItDown seen as defining his legacy]] much like UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden and the Suez Crisis. The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst" and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective ever to get much kinder. (Just after he resigned, a [[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-worst-prime-minister-ranking-third-since-ww2-a7358171.html University of Leeds-led study]] rated him Britain's third-worst prime minister since [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the Second World War]], indeed naming his Brexit gamble "the greatest failure of any Prime Minister since UsefulNotes/LordNorth [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution lost America]]," with only Eden and UsefulNotes/AlecDouglasHome ranking below him overall.) His reputation did improve ''slightly'' after he left office, since he was an effective party leader at least: when he assumed leadership, it had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade, and he left it with a working majority, which [[UsefulNotes/TheresaMay his successor]] helped squander in less than a year. But the pendulum might be swinging against him again, since ''her'' successor, UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson, actively repudiated many of his "image rehabilitation" strategies, called another snap election in 2019, abandoned the austerity agenda, and was rewarded with the Conservatives' largest parliamentary majority since 1987 and their (and indeed ''the'') highest share of the vote since 1979.[[note]]Among other factors, the Johnson Tories campaigned on a manifesto called ''Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain's Potential'', capitalising on general feeling that the democratic outcome ought to have been executed already, while Labour tried to appeal to "Leave" and "Remain" voters simultaneously by proposing a new Brexit deal to be proposed as the "Leave" option at a second referendum in 2020. The Tories won many hitherto safe-for-Labour seats in [[OopNorth northern England]] that had voted "Leave" in the Brexit referendum. This was also helped by Farage's Brexit Party, acting on the orders of Donald Trump, agreeing to only campaign in non-Conservative seats in order to focus on draining votes from traditional Labour voters.[[/note]]

By all reports, he makes a killing as a public speaker. Unlike fellow former [=PM=]s John Major and Tony Blair, who made headlines during the 2019 election campaign denouncing then-leaders Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn, he has continued to support his party and even (tepidly) endorses their Brexit strategy. He continues to argue that calling the referendum was a good idea, though he also still thinks Remain was the better choice.

He got involved in controversy during 2021 when it turned out he'd used his old Government connections to assist the company Greensill, leading to the old nickname [[UsefulNotes/DennisSkinner Dennis Skinner]] used for him, Dodgy Dave, being trotted out again.

While Cameron oversaw stability, excellent fiscal management, and the UK emerging from the Great Recession as one of the EU's stronger economies, his letting the Brexit genie out of the bottle undoes nearly all the good he may have done and is [[NeverLiveItDown seen as defining his legacy]] much like UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden and the Suez Crisis. The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst" and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective ever to get much kinder. (Just after he resigned, a [[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-worst-prime-minister-ranking-third-since-ww2-a7358171.html University of Leeds-led study]] rated him Britain's third-worst prime minister since [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the Second World War]], indeed naming his Brexit gamble "the greatest failure of any Prime Minister since UsefulNotes/LordNorth [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution lost America]]," with only Eden and UsefulNotes/AlecDouglasHome ranking below him overall.) His reputation did improve ''slightly'' after he left office, since he was an effective party leader at least: when he assumed leadership, it had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade, and he left it with a working majority, which [[UsefulNotes/TheresaMay his successor]] helped squander in less than a year. But the pendulum might be swinging against him again, since ''her'' successor, UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson, actively repudiated many of his "image rehabilitation" strategies, called another snap election in 2019, abandoned the austerity agenda, and was rewarded with the Conservatives' largest parliamentary majority since 1987 and their (and indeed ''the'') highest share of the vote since 1979.[[note]]Among other factors, the Johnson Tories campaigned on a manifesto called ''Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain's Potential'', capitalising on general feeling that the democratic outcome ought to have been executed already, while Labour tried to appeal to "Leave" and "Remain" voters simultaneously by proposing a new Brexit deal to be proposed as the "Leave" option at a second referendum in 2020. The Tories won many hitherto safe-for-Labour seats in [[OopNorth northern England]] that had voted "Leave" in the Brexit referendum.[[/note]]

As the [[UsefulNotes/UnitedKingdomGeneralElection2015 2015 election]] approached, the biggest danger to the Cameron Conservatives was generally seen to be not Labour -- Ed Miliband's leadership of that party often being seen as divisive and ineffectual -- but rather the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which had adopted a much harder-right-wing set of policies and made huge gains in local and European elections and which people thought might split the Conservative vote and bring Labour back to government despite itself. On top of that, the Lib Dems were predicted to fare poorly, making it unlikely that Cameron could call on anyone else to form a coalition.[[note]]Not that he likely would have, since his party is fully called the "Conservative and Unionist Party", the latter adjective emphasising how much they favour British integration, and the next biggest parties are for Welsh, North Irish, and especially Scottish independence.[[/note]] During the election campaign, Cameron promised a referendum on British membership of UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion (which he personally supported). It's generally believed that he expected only to retain power via a new coalition with the Lib Dems and was making a promise that he assumed he'd never have to keep to prevent anti-Europe Tory voters from defecting to UKIP.

Like many prime ministers before him, he attended Eton College and Oxford University as a youth. At the latter, he was a member of the Bullingdon Club and the Piers Gaveston Society, ''two'' invite-only students' drinking clubs renowned for being seriously posh and seriously destructive.[[note]]It's never been confirmed or denied, obviously, but legend has it the initiation ritual for the PGS involved pledges' genitalia and a pig's head.[[/note]] After graduating, he worked in the UsefulNotes/JohnMajor government as an adviser to powerful ministers Norman Lamont and Michael Howard, then worked in public relations.

In 2001, he became MP for Witney (the previous member, Shaun Woodward, had defected to the Labour Party, which was rather unpopular in rural Oxfordshire, and so he was parachuted into the safe Labour seat of Saint Helens South). He then became the ringleader of a clique of young Tory [=MPs=] called the Notting Hill set, so named for the fashionable neighbourhood ([[Film/NottingHill featured in the film of the same name]]) in which they all resided. Other members of this group included George Osborne and Michael Gove, who served in his later ministry as Chancellor and Education secretary respectively.

As the [[UsefulNotes/UnitedKingdomGeneralElection2015 2015 election]] approached, the biggest danger to the Cameron Conservatives was generally seen to be not Labour -- Ed Miliband's leadership of that party often being seen as divisive and ineffectual -- but rather the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which had adopted a much harder-right-wing set of policies and made huge gains in local and European elections and which people thought might split the Conservative vote and bring Labour back to government despite itself. On top of that, the Lib Dems were predicted to fare poorly, making it unlikely that Cameron could call on anyone else to form a coalition.[[note]]Not that he likely would have, since his party is fully called the "Conservative and Unionist Party", the latter adjective emphasising how much they favour British integration, and the next biggest parties are for Welsh, North Irish, and especially Scottish separation.[[/note]] During the election campaign, Cameron promised a referendum on British membership of UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion (which he personally supported). It's generally believed that he expected only to retain power via a new coalition with the Lib Dems and was making a promise that he assumed he'd never have to keep to prevent anti-Europe Tory voters from defecting to UKIP.

The Conservatives, surprising most people, won 330 seats, giving them an overall 12-seat majority. Cameron, therefore, remained as prime minister. The election results also saw three other party leaders -- Clegg (who was one of only eight Liberal [=MPs=] returned), Miliband and UKIP's Nigel Farage -- resign, although Farage later rescinded his resignation due to the party's sole MP not wanting to stand for the leadership. As Cameron entered Buckingham Palace at 12:28, the Conservatives only needed one to win a majority, which they formally got soon after.

Like Thatcher and Major before him, Cameron lost his premiership largely thanks to [[UsefulNotes/WithEuropeButNotOfIt Britain's complicated relationship with the EU]]. Having already taken a blow to his reputation from at least two attempts to cut benefits to low-paid workers and people with disabilities while handing out tax cuts to big businesses, Cameron had to fulfil his election promise to call a referendum on the UK's continued membership of the EU for 23 June 2016. The referendum ended in a clear if narrow victory for those who wanted to leave.[[note]]The results were very regionally polarized; Scotland, London, and Northern Ireland favoured remaining by 24, 20, and 11½ per cent respectively, Wales favoured leaving by 5 per cent, and the rest of England favoured leaving by almost a two-thirds majority. Across the UK and Gibraltar, "Leave" won the day with 17,410,742 votes (51.9 per cent) to "Remain's" 16,141,241 (48.1 per cent).[[/note]] With Cameron's position already imperilled before the referendum by Eurosceptic Conservatives who made little secret of their intention to call a vote of no confidence in his leadership irrespective of the result, Cameron [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere announced the day after the referendum that he would resign as Conservative leader and prime minister.]] Upon his resignation on 13 July 2016, he was succeeded by UsefulNotes/TheresaMay, who had been Home secretary throughout his ministry. He also resigned from Parliament effective on 12 September, claiming he'd be a distraction to May.

While Cameron oversaw stability, excellent fiscal management, and the UK emerging from the Great Recession as one of the EU's stronger economies, his letting the Brexit genie out of the bottle undoes nearly all the good he may have done and is [[NeverLiveItDown seen as defining his legacy]] much like UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden and the Suez Crisis. The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst" and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective ever to get much kinder. His reputation did improve ''slightly'' after leaving office, since he was an effective party leader at least: when he assumed leadership, it had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade, and he left it with a working majority, which [[UsefulNotes/TheresaMay his successor]] helped squander in less than a year. But the pendulum might be swinging against him again, since ''her'' successor, UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson, actively repudiated many of his "image rehabilitation" strategies, called another snap election in 2019, completely abandoned the austerity agenda, and was rewarded with the Conservatives' largest parliamentary majority since 1987, and their (and indeed ''the'') highest share of the vote since 1979.[[note]]Among other factors, the Johnson Tories campaigned on a manifesto called ''Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain's Potential'', capitalising on general feeling that the democratic outcome ought to have been executed already, while Labour tried to appeal to "Leave" and "Remain" voters simultaneously by proposing a new Brexit deal to be proposed as the "Leave" option at a second referendum in 2020. The Tories won many hitherto safe-for-Labour seats in [[OopNorth northern England]] that had voted "Leave" in the Brexit referendum.[[/note]]

* Despite his corporate/UsefulNotes/{{Oxbridge}} background, David tried awfully hard to come across as a man of the people. This is where most satire about Cameron comes from: in ''Tony! The Blair Musical'', he's featured [[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy rapping about it]].

David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a former British politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. He was also the leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He was the first Conservative PM of the 21st century and the {{young|AndInCharge}}est since UsefulNotes/LordLiverpool in 1812, in the latter case coming under UsefulNotes/TonyBlair's distinction by being 147 days younger when he was first appointed.

Like many Prime Ministers before him, he attended Eton College and Oxford University as a youth. At the latter, he was a member of the Bullingdon Club and the Piers Gaveston Society, ''two'' invite-only students' drinking clubs renowned for being seriously posh and seriously destructive.[[note]]It's never been confirmed or denied, obviously, but legend has it the initiation ritual for the PGS involved pledges' genitalia and a pig's head.[[/note]] After graduating, he worked in the UsefulNotes/JohnMajor government as an adviser to powerful ministers Norman Lamont and Michael Howard, then worked in public relations.

In 2001, he became MP for Witney (the previous member, Shaun Woodward, had defected to the Labour Party, which was rather unpopular in rural Oxfordshire, and so he was parachuted into the safe Labour seat of Saint Helens South). He then became the ringleader of a clique of young Tory [=MPs=] called the Notting Hill set, so named for the fashionable neighbourhood ([[Film/NottingHill featured in the film of the same name]]) in which they all resided. Other members of this group included future Chancellor George Osborne and future Education Secretary Michael Gove.

After the Conservatives lost the 2005 election, Michael Howard announced his resignation as Conservative leader, necessitating a leadership election. Cameron ran for leader and beat another David, David Davis. He spent nearly five years as Leader of the Opposition, rebuilding the image of the UK's historically most successful party, albeit a party now shattered by three straight electoral defeats, with some policy moves not welcomed by the more traditional branch of the party. He also suffered a family tragedy in 2009, with the death of his six-year-old son Ivan, who had been born severely disabled.

Cameron looked likely to become PM from the start of the global recession onwards, but his lead steadily declined, mostly thanks to the impression that what he was offering amounted to a retread of UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher's divisive policies, and a strong performance by Liberal Democrat leader UsefulNotes/NickClegg in the first televised leaders' debates in British electoral history (which didn't lead to the huge gain that his party expected) proved enough to produce a hung parliament, which ended with the Conservatives winning 306 out of 650 seats. When UsefulNotes/GordonBrown couldn't negotiate a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition, Cameron succeeded him as Prime Minister, leading a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government -- the UK's first formal coalition government since the all-party government UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill led back in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.

During the coalition government, Cameron came under criticism for not being able to achieve a more decisive and conclusive victory against a largely unpopular incumbent. Many of his policies were also incredibly unpopular, attracting criticism and protest. In the lead up to the 2015 election, Cameron deflected much of the criticism onto the Lib Dems and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, their leader. It helped that many Lib Dem supporters disagreed with Labour but did not want a Conservative government, so Clegg's decision to get into bed with Cameron soured their attitudes. While Cameron and his party were not the most popular people ever, support for Clegg and the Lib Dems plummeted as people came to see them as lapdogs for the Conservatives.

As the [[UsefulNotes/UnitedKingdomGeneralElection2015 2015 election]] approached, the biggest danger to the Cameron Conservatives was generally seen to be not Labour -- Ed Miliband's leadership of that party often being seen as divisive and ineffectual -- but rather the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which had adopted a much harder-right-wing set of policies and made huge gains in local and European elections and which people thought might well split the Conservative vote and bring Labour back to government. On top of that, the Lib Dems were predicted to fare poorly, making it unlikely that Cameron could call on anyone else to form a coalition.[[note]]Not that he likely would have, since his party is fully called the "Conservative and Unionist Party", the latter adjective emphasising how much they favour British integration, and the next biggest parties are for Welsh, North Irish, and especially Scottish secession.[[/note]] During the election campaign, Cameron promised a referendum on British membership of UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion (which he personally supported). It's generally believed that he expected only to retain power via a new coalition with the Lib Dems and was making a promise that he assumed he'd never have to keep to prevent anti-Europe Tory voters from defecting to UKIP.

The Conservatives, surprising most people, won 330 seats, giving them an overall 12-seat majority. Cameron, therefore, remained as Prime Minister. The election results also saw three other party leaders -- Clegg, Miliband and UKIP's Nigel Farage -- resign, albeit with Farage later rescinding his resignation due to the party's sole MP not wanting to stand for the leadership. As Cameron entered Buckingham Palace at 12:28, the Conservatives only needed one to win a majority, which they formally got soon after.

Like Thatcher and Major before him, Cameron lost his premiership largely thanks to [[UsefulNotes/WithEuropeButNotOfIt Britain's complicated relationship with the EU]]. Having already taken a blow to his reputation from at least two attempts to cut benefits to low-paid workers and people with disabilities while handing out tax cuts to big businesses, Cameron had to fulfil his election promise to call a referendum on the UK's continued membership of the EU for 23 June 2016. The referendum ended in a clear if narrow victory for those who wanted to leave.[[note]]The results were very regionally polarized; Scotland, London, and Northern Ireland favoured remaining by 24, 20, and 11½ per cent respectively, Wales favoured leaving by 5 per cent, and the rest of England favoured leaving by almost a two-thirds majority. Across the UK (and Gibraltar), "Leave" won the day with 17,410,742 votes (51.9 per cent) to "Remain's" 16,141,241 (48.1 per cent).[[/note]] With Cameron's position already imperilled before the referendum by Eurosceptic Conservatives who made little secret of their intention to call a vote of no confidence in his leadership irrespective of the result, Cameron [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere announced the day after the referendum that he would resign as Conservative leader and Prime Minister.]] Upon his resignation on 13 July 2016, he was succeeded by UsefulNotes/TheresaMay, who had been Home Secretary throughout his ministry. He also resigned from Parliament effective on 12 September, claiming he'd be a distraction to May.

While Cameron oversaw stability, excellent fiscal management, and the UK emerging from the Great Recession as one of the EU's stronger economies, his letting the Brexit genie out of the bottle undoes nearly all the good he may have done and is [[NeverLiveItDown seen as defining his legacy]] much like UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden and the Suez Crisis. The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst" and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective ever to get much kinder. His reputation did improve ''slightly'' after leaving office, since he was an effective party leader at least: when he assumed leadership, it had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade, and he left it with a working majority, which [[UsefulNotes/TheresaMay his successor]] helped squander in less than a year. But the pendulum might be swinging against him again, since ''her'' successor, UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson, actively repudiated many of his "image rehabilitation" strategies, called a snap election in 2019, completely abandoned the austerity agenda, and was rewarded with the Conservatives' largest parliamentary majority since 1987, and their (and indeed ''the'') highest share of the vote since 1979.[[note]]Among other factors, the Johnson Tories campaigned on a manifesto called ''Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain's Potential'', capitalising on general feeling that the democratic outcome ought to have been executed already, while Labour tried to appeal to "Leave" and "Remain" voters simultaneously by proposing a new Brexit deal that would be proposed as the "Leave" option at a second referendum in 2020. The Tories won many hitherto safe-for-Labour seats in northern England that had voted "Leave" in the Brexit referendum.[[/note]]

* Cameron, like all party leaders, is a regular target for ''Magazine/PrivateEye'', particularly in the comic strip ''Dave Snooty and His Pals'' (a spoof of ''ComicBook/TheBeano''[='=]s ''Lord Snooty''). In the spirit of the Coalition, he shared his text feature, a parody school newsletter for the "Coalition Academy", with Nick Clegg until his winning an overall majority in 2015 led it to being renamed the "Cameron Free School".

* He doesn't appear, but TheGhost opposition leader/Prime Minister "J.B." in ''Series/TheThickOfIt'' is suggested to be heavily inspired by Cameron, being something of an Etonian posh boy with a fervent desire to be seen as cool, down-to-earth and with-it despite not quite being able to shed his overprivileged (and slightly racist) attitudes.

In 2001, he became MP for Witney (the previous member, Shaun Woodward, had defected to the Labour Party, which was rather unpopular in rural Oxfordshire, and so he was parachuted into the safe Labour seat of Saint Helens South).

While Cameron oversaw stability, excellent fiscal management, and the UK emerging from the Great Recession as one of the EU's stronger economies, his letting the Brexit genie out of the bottle undoes nearly all the good he may have done and is [[NeverLiveItDown seen as defining his legacy]] much like UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden and the Suez Crisis. The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst" and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective ever to get much kinder. His reputation did improve ''slightly'' after leaving office, since he was an effective party leader at least: when he assumed leadership, it had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade, and he left it with a working majority, which [[UsefulNotes/TheresaMay his successor]] helped squander in less than a year. But the pendulum might be swinging against him again, since ''her'' successor, UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson, actively repudiated many of his "image rehabilitation" strategies, called a snap election in 2019, and was rewarded with the Conservatives' largest parliamentary majority since 1987, and their (and indeed ''the'') highest share of the vote since 1979.[[note]]Among other factors, the Johnson Tories campaigned on a manifesto called ''Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain's Potential'', capitalising on general feeling that the democratic outcome ought to have been executed already, while Labour tried to appeal to "Leave" and "Remain" voters simultaneously by proposing a new Brexit deal that would be proposed as the "Leave" option at a second referendum in 2020. The Tories won many hitherto safe-for-Labour seats in northern England that had voted "Leave" in the Brexit referendum.[[/note]]

While Cameron oversaw stability, excellent fiscal management, and the UK emerging from the Great Recession as one of the EU's stronger economies, his letting the Brexit genie out of the bottle undoes nearly all the good he may have done and is [[NeverLiveItDown seen as defining his legacy]] much like UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden and the Suez Crisis. The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst" and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective ever to get much kinder. His reputation did improve ''slightly'' after leaving office, since he was an effective party leader at least: when he assumed leadership, it had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade, and he left it with a working majority, which [[UsefulNotes/TheresaMay his successor]] helped squander in less than a year. But the pendulum might be swinging against him again, since ''her'' successor, UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson, actively repudiated many of his "image rehabilitation" strategies, called a snap election in 2019, and was rewarded with the Conservatives' largest parliamentary majority since 1987.[[note]]Among other factors, the Johnson Tories campaigned on a manifesto called ''Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain's Potential'', capitalising on general feeling that the democratic outcome ought to have been executed already, while Labour tried to appeal to "Leave" and "Remain" voters simultaneously by proposing a new Brexit deal that would be proposed as the "Leave" option at a second referendum in 2020. The Tories won many hitherto safe-for-Labour seats in northern England that had voted "Leave" in the Brexit referendum.[[/note]]

Like many Prime Ministers before him, he attended Eton College and Oxford University as a youth. At the latter, he was a member of the Bullingdon Club and the Piers Gaveston Society, ''two'' invite-only students' drinking clubs renowned for being seriously posh and seriously destructive.[[note]]The initiation hazing for the PGS may have involved pledges' genitalia and a pig's head.[[/note]] After graduating, he worked in the UsefulNotes/JohnMajor government as an adviser to powerful ministers Norman Lamont and Michael Howard, then worked in public relations.

In 2001, he became MP for Witney (the previous member, Shaun Woodward, had defected to the Labour Party, which was rather unpopular in rural Oxfordshire, and so ''he'' was parachuted into the safe Labour seat of Saint Helens South).

Cameron looked likely to become PM from the start of the global recession onwards, but his lead steadily declined, mostly thanks to the impression that what he was offering amounted to a retread of UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher's divisive policies, and a strong performance by Liberal Democrat leader UsefulNotes/NickClegg in the first leaders' debates in British electoral history (which didn't lead to the huge gain that his party expected) proved enough to produce a "Hung Parliament". When UsefulNotes/GordonBrown couldn't negotiate a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition, Cameron succeeded him as Prime Minister, leading a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government -- the UK's first formal coalition government since the all-party government UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill led back in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.

During the coalition government, Cameron came under criticism for not being able to achieve a more decisive and conclusive victory against a largely unpopular incumbent. Many of his policies were also incredibly unpopular, receiving criticism and protest. In the run up to the 2015 election, Cameron deflected much of the criticism onto the Lib Dems and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, their leader. It helped that a significant percentage of Lib Dems, while disagreeing with Labour, did not want a Conservative government and were therefore very unimpressed by Clegg's decision to get into bed with Cameron. While Cameron and his party were not the most popular people ever, support for Clegg and the Lib Dems plummeted as they became viewed as lapdogs for the Conservatives.

As the [[UsefulNotes/UnitedKingdomGeneralElection2015 2015 election]] approached, the biggest danger to the Cameron Conservatives was generally seen to be not Labour -- Ed Miliband's leadership of that party often being seen as divisive and ineffectual -- but rather the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which had adopted a much harder-right-wing set of policies and made huge gains in local and European elections and which people thought might well split the Conservative vote and bring Labour back to government. On top of that, the Lib Dems were predicted to fare poorly, making it seem unlikely that Cameron could call on anyone else to form a coalition. During the election campaign, Cameron promised a referendum on British membership of the EU (which he personally supported). It's generally believed that he expected only to retain power via a new coalition with the Lib Dems and was making a promise that he assumed he'd never have to keep to prevent anti-Europe Tory voters from defecting to UKIP.

The Conservatives, surprising most people, won 330 out of 650 seats, giving them an overall 12-seat majority. Cameron, therefore, remained as Prime Minister. The election results also saw three other party leaders -- Clegg, Miliband and UKIP's Nigel Farage -- resign, albeit with Farage later rescinding his resignation due to the party's sole MP not wanting to stand for the leadership. As Cameron entered Buckingham Palace at 12:28, the Conservatives only needed one to win a majority, which they formally got soon after.

Like Thatcher and Major before him, Cameron lost his premiership largely thanks to [[UsefulNotes/WithEuropeButNotOfIt Britain's complicated relationship with]] UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion. Having already taken a blow to his reputation from at least two attempts to cut benefits to low-paid workers and disabled people while handing out tax cuts to big businesses, Cameron had to fulfil his election promise to call a referendum on the UK's continued membership of the EU for 23 June 2016. The referendum ended in a clear if narrow victory for those who wanted to leave.[[note]]The results were very regionally polarized; Scotland, London, and Northern Ireland favoured remaining by double-digit percentage margins, Wales favoured leaving by 5 per cent, while the rest of England favoured leaving by almost a two-thirds majority. Across the UK (and Gibraltar), "Leave" won the day with 17,410,742 votes (51.9 per cent) to "Remain's" 16,141,241 (48.1 per cent).[[/note]] With Cameron's position already imperilled before the referendum by Eurosceptic Conservatives who made little secret of their intention to call a vote of no confidence in his leadership irrespective of the result, Cameron [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere announced the day after the referendum that he would resign as Conservative leader and Prime Minister.]] Upon his resignation on 13 July 2016, he was succeeded by UsefulNotes/TheresaMay. He also resigned from Parliament effective on 12 September, claiming he'd be a distraction to May if he were sitting on the back benches.

While Cameron oversaw stability, excellent fiscal management, and the UK emerging from the Great Recession as one of the EU's stronger economies, his letting the Brexit genie out of the bottle erases nearly all the good he did and is [[NeverLiveItDown seen as defining his legacy]] in a manner very like UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden and the Suez Crisis. The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst" and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective ever to get much kinder. His reputation has improved ''slightly'' since leaving office, however, since he was an effective party leader at least: when he assumed leadership, it had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade, and he left it with a small but distinct majority, which [[UsefulNotes/TheresaMay his successor]] managed to squander in less than a year. But the pendulum might be swinging against him again, since ''her'' successor UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson actively repudiated many of his "image rehabilitation" strategies, called a snap election, and was rewarded with the Conservatives' largest parliamentary majority since 1987.[[note]]Among other factors, the Johnson Tories campaigned on a manifesto called "''Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain's Potential''", while Labour tried to placate "Leave" and "Remain" voters by proposing a new Brexit deal that would be proposed as the "Leave" option at a second referendum in 2020. The Tories won many hitherto safe-for-Labour seats in northern England that had voted "Leave" in the Brexit referendum.[[/note]]

Still living, by all reports he makes a killing as a public speaker. Unlike fellow former [=PM=]s John Major and Tony Blair, who made headlines during the 2019 election campaign denouncing then-leaders Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn, he has continued to support his party and even (tepidly) endorses their Brexit strategy. He continues to argue that calling the Referendum was a good idea, though he also continues to feel that Remain was the better choice.

David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. He was also the leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He was the first Conservative PM of the 21st century and the {{young|AndInCharge}}est since UsefulNotes/LordLiverpool in 1812, in the latter case coming under UsefulNotes/TonyBlair's distinction by being 147 days younger when he was first appointed.

His early life saw him attend Eton College and Oxford University (as have many Prime Ministers). At the latter, he was a member of the Bullingdon Club and the Piers Gaveston Society, ''two'' invite-only students' drinking clubs renowned for being seriously posh and seriously destructive.[[note]]The initiation hazing for the PGS may have involved pledges' genitalia and a pig's head.[[/note]] After graduating, he worked in the UsefulNotes/JohnMajor government as an adviser to powerful ministers Norman Lamont and Michael Howard, then worked in public relations.

In 2001, he became MP for Witney (the previous member, Shaun Woodward, had defected to the Labour Party, which was rather unpopular in rural Oxfordshire, and so ''he'' was parachuted into the safe Labour seat of South Saint Helens).

Michael Howard announced his resignation as Conservative leader after the party's 2005 election defeat. Cameron ran for leader and beat another David, David Davis. He spent nearly five years as Leader of the Opposition, rebuilding the image of the UK's historically most successful party, albeit a party now shattered by three straight electoral defeats, with some policy moves not welcomed by the more traditional branch of the party. He also suffered a family tragedy in 2009, with the death of his six-year-old son Ivan, who had been born severely disabled.

The Conservatives, surprising most people, managed to win 330 out of 650 seats, giving them an overall 12-seat majority. Cameron, therefore, remained as Prime Minister. The elections results also saw three other party leaders -- Clegg, Miliband and UKIP's Nigel Farage -- resign, albeit with Farage later rescinding his resignation due to the party's sole MP not wanting to stand for the leadership. As Cameron entered Buckingham Palace at 12:28, the Conservatives only needed one to win a majority, which they formally got soon after.

Like Thatcher and Major before him, Cameron lost his premiership largely thanks to [[UsefulNotes/WithEuropeButNotOfIt Britain's complicated relationship with]] UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion. Having already taken a blow to his reputation from at least two attempts to cut benefits to low-paid workers and disabled people while handing out tax cuts to big businesses, Cameron had to fulfil his election promise to call a referendum on the UK's continued membership of the EU for 23 June 2016. The referendum ended in a clear if narrow victory for those who wanted to leave.[[note]]The results were very regionally polarized; London and Scotland were heavily in favour of remaining, Northern Ireland was marginally in favour of remaining, while Wales and the rest of England were in favour of leaving by almost a two-thirds majority. Across the UK (and Gibraltar), "Leave" won the day with 17,410,742 votes (51.9 per cent) to "Remain's" 16,141,241 (48.1 per cent).[[/note]] With Cameron's position already imperilled before the referendum by Eurosceptic Conservatives who made little secret of their intention to call a vote of no confidence in his leadership irrespective of the result, Cameron [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere announced the day after the referendum that he would resign as Conservative leader and Prime Minister.]] Upon his resignation on 13 July 2016, he was succeeded by UsefulNotes/TheresaMay. He also resigned from Parliament effective on 12 September, claiming he'd be a distraction to May if he were sitting on the back benches.

While Cameron oversaw stability, excellent fiscal management, and the UK emerging from the Great Recession as one of the EU's stronger economies, his letting the Brexit genie out of the bottle effectively erases any good he did and is [[NeverLiveItDown seen as defining his legacy]] in a manner very like UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden and the Suez Crisis. The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst" and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective ever to get much kinder. His reputation has improved ''slightly'' since leaving office, however, since he was an effective party leader at least: when he assumed leadership, it had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade, and he left it with a decent majority, which [[UsefulNotes/TheresaMay his successor]] managed to squander in less than a year. But the pendulum might be swinging against him again, since ''her'' successor UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson actively repudiated many of his "image rehabilitation" strategies and was rewarded with the first substantial Parliamentary majority for the Conservatives in over 30 years.

Cameron's generally privileged upbringing and PR background has made him a rich target for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKFTtYx2OHc satire]] and accusations that [[UpperClassTwit he cannot comprehend the lives of ordinary people]]. The fact that he is descended on his mother's side from a bastard daughter of [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfHanover King William IV]] apparently [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-462313/Dave-Cameron-says-hes-touch-reality--wealth-blue-blood-wonder.html doesn't help]].

Still living, by all reports he makes a killing as a public speaker. Unlike other former [=PM=]s like John Major or Tony Blair he has continued to support his party and even (tepidly) endorses their Brexit strategy. He continues to argue that calling the Referendum was a good idea, though he also continues to feel that Remain was the better choice.

* In ''ComicBook/TheBojeffriesSaga'', an [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed unnamed but recognisable]] Cameron is murdered via NeckSnap by Ginda Bojeffries during Prime Minister's Question Time.
* He doesn't appear, but TheUnseen opposition leader/Prime Minister "J.B." in ''Series/TheThickOfIt'' is suggested to be heavily inspired by Cameron, being something of an Etonian posh-boy with a fervent desire to be seen as cool, down-to-earth and with-it despite not quite being able to shed his overprivileged (and slightly racist) attitudes.

Still living, by all reports he makes a killing as a public speaker. Unlike other former PMs like John Major or Tony Blair he has continued to support his party and even (tepidly) endorses their Brexit strategy. He continues to argue that calling the Referendum was a good idea, though he also continues to feel that Remain was the better choice.

While Cameron oversaw stability, excellent fiscal management, and the UK emerging from the Great Recession as one of the EU's stronger economies, his letting the Brexit genie out of the bottle effectively erases any good he did and is [[NeverLiveItDown seen as defining his legacy]] in a manner very like UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden and the Suez Crisis. The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst" and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective ever to get much kinder. His reputation has improved ''slightly'' since leaving office, however, since he was an effective party leader at least: when he assumed leadership, it had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade, and he left it with a decent majority, which [[UsefulNotes/TheresaMay his successor]] managed to squander in less than a year.

Like Thatcher and Major before him, Cameron lost his premiership largely thanks to [[UsefulNotes/WithEuropeButNotOfIt Britain's complicated relationship with]] UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion. Having already taken a blow to his reputation from at least two attempts to cut benefits to low-paid workers and disabled people while handing out tax cuts to big businesses, Cameron had to fulfil his election promise to call a referendum on the UK's continued membership of the EU for 23 June 2016. The referendum ended in a clear if narrow victory for those who wanted to leave.[[note]]The results were very regionally polarized; London and Scotland were heavily in favour of remaining, Northern Ireland was marginally in favour of remaining, while Wales and the rest of England were in favour of leaving by almost a two-thirds majority. Across the UK (and Gibraltar), "Leave" won the day with 17,410,742 votes (51.9 per cent) to "Remain's" 16,141,241 (48.1 per cent).[[/note]] With Cameron's position already imperilled before the referendum by Eurosceptic Conservatives who made little secret of their intention to call a vote of no confidence in his leadership irrespective of the result, Cameron announced the day after the referendum that he would resign as Conservative leader and Prime Minister. Upon his resignation on 13 July 2016, he was succeeded by UsefulNotes/TheresaMay. He also resigned from Parliament effective on 12 September, claiming he'd be a distraction to May if he were sitting on the back benches.

David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. He was also the leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He was the first Conservative PM of the 21st century and the {{young|AndInCharge}}est since UsefulNotes/LordLiverpool in 1812.

His early life saw him attend Eton College and Oxford University (as have many Prime Ministers). At the latter, he was a member of the Bullingdon Club, an invite-only students' drinking club renowned for being seriously posh and seriously destructive.[[note]]The initiation hazing may have involved pledges' genitalia and a pig's head.[[/note]] After graduating, he was an adviser to Norman Lamont and Michael Howard in the UsefulNotes/JohnMajor government, then worked in public relations.

In 2001, he became MP for Witney (the previous member, Shaun Woodward, had defected to the Labour Party, which was rather unpopular in rural Oxfordshire, and so ended up being parachuted into another seat).

Cameron looked likely to become PM from the start of the global recession onwards, but his lead steadily declined, mostly thanks to the impression that what he was offering amounted to a retread of UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher's divisive policies and a strong performance by Liberal Democrat leader UsefulNotes/NickClegg in the first leaders' debates in British electoral history (which didn't lead to the huge gain that his party expected) proved enough to produce a "Hung Parliament". When UsefulNotes/GordonBrown couldn't negotiate a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition, Cameron succeeded him as Prime Minister, leading a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government -- the UK's first formal coalition government since the all-party government UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill led back in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.

During the coalition government, Cameron came under criticism for not being able to achieve a more decisive and conclusive victory against a largely unpopular incumbent. Many of his policies were also incredibly unpopular, receiving criticism or protest; In the run up to the 2015 election, Cameron deflected much of the criticism onto the Lib Dems and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, their leader. It helped that a significant percentage of Lib Dems, while disagreeing with Labour, did not want a Conservative government and were therefore very unimpressed by Clegg's decision to get into bed with Cameron. While Cameron and his party were not the most popular people ever, support for Clegg and the Lib Dems plummeted as they became viewed as lapdogs for the Conservatives.

As the [[UsefulNotes/UnitedKingdomGeneralElection2015 2015 election]] approached, the biggest danger to the Cameron Conservatives was generally seen to be not Labour -- Ed Miliband's leadership of that party often being seen as divisive and ineffectual -- but rather the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which had adopted a much harder-right-wing set of policies and made huge gains in local and European elections and which people thought might well split the Conservative vote and bring Labour back to government. On top of that, the Lib Dems were predicted to fare poorly, making it seem unlikely that Cameron could call on anyone else to form a coalition. During the election campaign, Cameron promised a referendum on British membership of the EU (which he personally supported). It's generally believed that he was expecting only to retain power via a new coalition with the Lib Dems and was making a promise he assumed that he'd never have to keep to prevent anti-Europe Tory voters from defecting to UKIP.

Later that year, Conservative peer Michael Ashcroft published a book that infamously accused him of having engaged in certain activities with a dead pig's head as part of an initiation ritual to the previously mentioned Bullingdon Club. Regardless of whether the allegations are true, it's led to its share of jokes, especially as a result of certain scenes in ''Recap/BlackMirrorTheNationalAnthem''.

Like Thatcher and Major before him, the proximate cause of Cameron's fall from political grace was UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion. Having already taken a blow to his reputation from at least two attempts to cut benefits to low-paid workers and disabled people while handing out tax cuts to big businesses, Cameron had to fulfil his election promise to call a referendum on the UK's continued membership of the EU for June 2016. The referendum ended in a clear if narrow victory for those who wanted to leave.[[note]]The results were very regionally polarized; London and Scotland were heavily in favour of remaining, Northern Ireland was marginally in favour of remaining, while Wales and the rest of England were in favour of leaving by almost a two-thirds majority. Across the UK (and Gibraltar), "Leave" won the day with 17,410,742 votes (51.9 per cent) to "Remain's" 16,141,241 (48.1 per cent).[[/note]] With Cameron's position already imperilled before the referendum by Eurosceptic Conservatives who made little secret of their intention to call a vote of no confidence in his leadership irrespective of the result, Cameron announced the day after the referendum that he would resign. Upon his resignation on July 13, 2016, he was succeeded by UsefulNotes/TheresaMay. He also resigned from Parliament effective the following September, claiming he'd be a distraction to May if he sat on the back benches.

While Cameron oversaw stability, excellent fiscal management and the UK emerging from the Great Recession as one of the EU's stronger economies, his letting the Brexit genie out of the bottle effectively erases any good he did and is [[NeverLiveItDown seen as defining his legacy]] in a manner very like UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden and the Suez Crisis. The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst" and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective to ever get much kinder. His reputation has improved ''slightly'' since leaving office, however, since he was an effective party leader at least: when he assumed leadership, it had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade, and he left it with a decent majority, which [[UsefulNotes/TheresaMay his successor]] managed to squander in less than a year.

Cameron's generally privileged upbringing and PR background has made him a rich source for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKFTtYx2OHc&feature=related satire]] and accusations that he cannot comprehend the lives of ordinary people. The fact that he is descended on his mother's side from a bastard daughter of [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfHanover King William IV]] apparently [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-462313/Dave-Cameron-says-hes-touch-reality--wealth-blue-blood-wonder.html doesn't help]].

David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. He was also the leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He was the first Conservative PM of the 21st century and the youngest since 1812.

His early life saw him attend Eton College (as have many Prime Ministers) and Oxford University (ditto). At the latter he was a member of the Bullingdon Club, an invite-only students' drinking club renowned for being seriously posh and seriously destructive.[[note]]The initiation hazing may or may not have involved pledges' genitalia and a pig's head.[[/note]] After graduating, he was an adviser to Norman Lamont and Michael Howard in the UsefulNotes/JohnMajor government, then worked in public relations.

The 2005 Conservative election defeat saw Cameron run for leader and beat another David, David Davis. He spent nearly five years as Leader of the Opposition, rebuilding the image of a party shattered by three straight electoral defeats, with some policy moves not welcomed by the more traditional branch of the party. He also suffered a family tragedy in 2009, with the death of his six-year-old son Ivan, who had been born severely disabled.

Cameron looked likely to become PM from the start of the recession onwards, but his lead steadily declined, mostly thanks to the impression that he was offering nothing but a retread on UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher's divisive policies and a strong performance by Liberal Democrat leader UsefulNotes/NickClegg in the first leaders' debates in British electoral history (which didn't lead to the huge gain that his party expected) proved enough to produce a "Hung Parliament". When UsefulNotes/GordonBrown couldn't negotiate a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition, Cameron became the prime minister of a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government.

As the [[UsefulNotes/UnitedKingdomGeneralElection2015 2015 election]] approached, the biggest danger to the Cameron Conservatives was generally seen to be not Labour -- Ed Miliband's leadership of that party often being seen as divisive and ineffectual -- but rather the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which had adopted a much harder-right-wing set of policies and made huge gains in local and European elections, and was seen as having the potential to split the Conservative vote and bring Labour back to government. On top of that, the Lib Dems were predicted to fare poorly, making it seem unlikely that Cameron could call on anyone else to form a coalition. During the election campaign, Cameron promised a referendum on British membership of the EU. It's generally believed that he was expecting to only retain power via a new coalition with the Lib Dems and was making a promise he assumed that he'd never have to keep to prevent anti-Europe Tory voters from defecting to UKIP.

The Conservatives, surprising pretty much everyone, managed to gain just enough seats to form an absolute majority of 12. Cameron, therefore, remained as Prime Minister. The elections results also saw three other party leaders -- UKIP's Nigel Farage, Clegg and Miliband -- resign, albeit with Farage later rescinding his resignation due to the party's sole MP not wanting to run for the leadership. As Cameron entered Buckingham Palace at 12:28, the Conservatives only needed one to win a majority, which they formally got soon after.

Later that year, Conservative peer Michael Ashcroft published a book that infamously accused him of having engaged in certain activities with a dead pig's head as part of an initiation ritual to the previously mentioned Bullingdon Club. Regardless of whether the allegations are true or not, it's led to its share of jokes, especially as a result of certain scenes in ''Recap/BlackMirrorTheNationalAnthem''.

While Cameron oversaw stability, excellent fiscal management and the UK emerging from the Great Recession as one of the EU's stronger economies, his letting the Brexit genie out of the bottle effectively erases any good he did and is [[NeverLiveItDown seen as defining his legacy]] in a manner very like UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden and the Suez Crisis. The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst" and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective to ever get much kinder. His reputation has improved ''slightly'' since leaving office, however, since he did well as a party leader: when he assumed leadership, it had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade, and he left it with a decent majority, which [[UsefulNotes/TheresaMay his successor]] managed to squander in less than a year.

* Cameron, like all party leaders, is a regular target for ''Magazine/PrivateEye'', particularly in the comic strip ''Dave Snooty and his Pals'' (a spoof of ''ComicBook/TheBeano''[='=]s ''Lord Snooty''). In the spirit of the Coalition, he shared his text feature, a parody school newsletter for the "Coalition Academy", with Nick Clegg until his winning an overall majority in 2015 led it to being renamed the "Cameron Free School".

David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. He was also the Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He was the first Conservative PM of the 21st century and the youngest since 1812.

His early life saw him attend Eton College (as have many Prime Ministers) and Oxford University (ditto). At the latter he was a member of the Bullingdon Club, an invite-only students' drinking club renowned for being seriously posh and seriously destructive[[note]]The initiation hazing may or may not have involved pledges' genitalia and a pig's head[[/note]]. After graduating, he was an adviser to Norman Lamont and Michael Howard in the UsefulNotes/JohnMajor administration, then worked in public relations.

In 2001, he became MP for Witney (the previous member, Shaun Woodward, had done a rather unpopular thing in rural Oxfordshire and defected to the Labour Party, so ended up being parachuted into another seat).

The 2005 Conservative election defeat saw Cameron run for leader and beat another David, David Davis. He spent nearly five years as Leader of the Opposition, rebuilding the image of a party shattered by three straight electoral defeats, with some policy moves not welcomed by the more traditional branch of the party. He also suffered a family tragedy in 2009, with the death of his 6 year old son Ivan, who had been born severely disabled.

Cameron looked likely to become PM from the start of the recession onwards, but his lead was steadily eroded, mostly by the impression that he was offering nothing but a retread on the divisive policies of UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher, and a strong performance by Liberal Democrat leader UsefulNotes/NickClegg in the first leaders' debates in British electoral history (which didn't lead to the huge gain that his party expected) proved enough to produce a "Hung Parliament". When UsefulNotes/GordonBrown was unable to negotiate a Liberal Democrat/Labour coalition, Cameron became the prime minister of a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government.

During the coalition government, Cameron came under criticism for not being able to achieve a more decisive and conclusive victory against a largely unpopular incumbent. Many of his policies were also incredibly unpopular, receiving criticism or protest; In the run up to the 2015 election, Cameron deflected much of the criticism onto the Lib Dems and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, their leader. It helped that a significant percentage of Lib Dems, while disagreeing with Labour, did not want a Conservative government and were therefore very unimpressed by Clegg's decision to get into bed with Cameron. While Cameron and his party were not the most popular people ever, support for Clegg and the Lib Dems plummeted as they became viewed as lapdogs for the Conservatives.

As the [[UsefulNotes/UnitedKingdomGeneralElection2015 2015 election]] approached, the biggest danger to Cameron was generally seen not to be Labour -- Ed Milliband's leadership of that party often being seen as divisive and ineffectual -- but rather the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which had adopted a much harder-right-wing set of policies and made huge gains in local and European elections, and was seen as being able to potentially split the Conservative vote and allow the election of Labour. On top of that, the Lib Dems were predicted to fare poorly, making it seem unlikely that Cameron could call on anyone else to form a coalition. During the election campaign, Cameron promised a referendum on British membership of the EU. It's generally believed that he was expecting to only retain power via a new coalition with the Lib Dems, and was making a promise he assumed that he'd never have to keep in an attempt to prevent anti-Europe Tory voters from defecting to UKIP.

The Conservatives, surprising pretty much everyone, managed to gain just enough seats to form an absolute majority of 12. Cameron, therefore, remained as Prime Minister. The elections results also saw three other party leaders, Nigel Farage, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband, resign, albeit with Farage later rescinding his resignation due to the party's sole MP not wanting to run for the leadership. As Cameron entered Buckingham Palace at 12:28, the Conservatives only needed one to win a majority - which they formally got soon after.

Later that year, a book was published that infamously accused him of having engaged in certain activities with the head of a pig as part of an initiation ritual to the previously mentioned Bullingdon Club. Regardless of whether the allegations are true or not, it's led to quite its share of jokes, especially as a result of certain scenes within ''Recap/BlackMirrorTheNationalAnthem''.

Like Thatcher and Major before him, Cameron's ultimate downfall was UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion. Having already taken a blow to his reputation from at least two attempts to cut benefits to low-paid workers and disabled people while handing out tax cuts to big businesses, Cameron had to fulfil his election promise to call a referendum on the UK's continued membership of the EU for June 2016. The referendum ended in a clear-cut if narrow victory for those who wanted to leave[[note]](52%-48% overall, albeit with the results being very regionally polarized; London and Scotland were heavily in favour of remaining, Northern Ireland was marginally in favour of remaining, while Wales and the rest of England were in favour of leaving by almost a two-thirds majority)[[/note]]. With Cameron's position already imperilled before the referendum by Eurosceptic Conservatives who made little secret of their intention to call a vote of no confidence in his leadership irrespective of the result, Cameron announced the day after the referendum that he would resign. Upon his resignation on July 13, 2016, he was succeeded by UsefulNotes/TheresaMay.

While Cameron oversaw stability, excellent fiscal management and the UK emerging from the Great Recession as one of the EU's stronger economies, his letting the Brexit genie out of the bottle effectively erases any good he did and is seen as defining his legacy in manner similar to UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden and the Suez Crisis. The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst", and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective to ever get much kinder. His reputation has improved ''slightly'' since leaving office, however, since he at least took over a party that had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade and left it with a decent majority, which [[UsefulNotes/TheresaMay his successor]] managed to squander in less than a year.

* Despite his corporate/Oxbridge background, David tried awfully hard to come across as a man of the people. This is where most satire about Cameron comes from: in ''Tony! The Blair Musical'', he's featured [[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy rapping about it]].
* Cameron, like all party leaders, is a regular target for ''Magazine/PrivateEye'', particularly in the comic strip ''Dave Snooty and his Pals'' (a spoof of ''ComicBook/TheBeano'''s ''Lord Snooty''). In the spirit of the Coalition, he shared his text feature, a parody school newsletter for the "Coalition Academy", with Nick Clegg until his winning an overall majority in 2015 led it to being renamed the "Cameron Free School".

* Steve Bell's long-running cartoon in the Guardian portrayed him first as a jellyfish wearing a cycle helmet, and later with an inflated condom for a head[[note]]Steve Bell said that when he met Cameron in person, he was struck by how smooth the man's skin was and thus chose the smoothest thing he could think of when drawing his cartoons. When Cameron soon thereafter called himself the "safe" choice in an interview, Bell's mind was made up there and then.[[/note]].
* In ''ComicBook/TheBojeffriesSaga'', an [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed unnamed but recognisable]] Cameron is murdered via NeckSnap by Ginda Bojeffries during Prime Minister's Question Time.
* He doesn't appear, but TheUnseen opposition leader / Prime Minister "J.B" in ''Series/TheThickOfIt'' is suggested to be heavily inspired by Cameron, being something of an Etonian posh-boy with a fervent desire to be seen as cool, down-to-earth and with-it despite not quite being able to shed his over-privileged (and slightly racist) attitudes.

While Cameron oversaw stability, excellent fiscal management and the UK emerging from the Great Recession as one of the EU's stronger economies, his letting the Brexit genie out of the bottle effectively erases any good he did and is seen as defining his legacy in manner similar to Useful Notes/AnthonyEden and the Suez Crisis. The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst", and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective to ever get much kinder. His reputation has improved ''slightly'' since leaving office, however, since he at least took over a party that had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade and left it with a decent majority, which [[UsefulNotes/TheresaMay his successor]] managed to squander in less than a year.

The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst", and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective to ever get much kinder. His reputation has improved ''slightly'' since leaving office, however, since he at least took over a party that had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade and left it with a decent majority, which [[UsefulNotes/TheresaMay his successor]] managed to squander in less than a year.

The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst", and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective to ever get much kinder. His reputation has improved ''slightly'' since leaving office, however, since he at least took over a party that had been in the doldrums for the better part of a decade and left it with a decent majority, which his successor managed to squander in less than a year.

* Steve Bell's long-running cartoon in the Guardian portrayed him as a jellyfish wearing a cycle helmet, and later with an inflated condom for a head[[note]]Steve Bell said that when he met Cameron in person, he was struck by how smooth the man's skin was and thus chose the smoothest thing he could think of when drawing his cartoons[[/note]].

The general opinion among political writers about his time in office can basically be summed up as "amongst the worst", and that it'll take a miracle for historical perspective to ever get much kinder.

Later that year, a book was published that infamously accused him of having engaged in certain activities with the head of a pig as part of an initiation ritual to the previously mentioned Bullingdon Club. Regardless of whether the allegations are true or not, it's led to quite its share of jokes, especially as a result of certain scenes within ''Series/BlackMirror''.