David Cameron

History

Cameron was part of Tory prime minister John Major’s ‘breakfast club’. This true blue brat pack advised Major in pre-dawn meetings on confronting Labour in parliament. Cameron pumped Major with slick arguments against the minimum wage, compassionately claiming that rises for the low paid would leave them unemployed.

Dave then became special adviser to Tory chancellor Norman Lamont. In his memoirs, Lamont recalls that he was ‘a brilliant Old Etonian with a taste for the good life’. Cameron stood by Lamont when the chancellor said mass unemployment was a ‘price worth paying’, and when he wasted billions failing to prop up the pound on ‘Black Wednesday’.

He had a sudden loss of compassion, however, when Lamont resigned, after which he got a new job as special adviser to Michael Howard. A hurt Lamont recalls his first, awkward, post-resignation Tory cocktail party. ‘The next person I saw was David Cameron, my former special adviser at the Treasury. He cut me dead.’ Unable to show compassion even to fellow Tories, Cameron wants us to believe he cares about the poor and excluded.

Working for Howard, Cameron’s compassion also seemed rationed. Derek Lewis, the former head of prisons, claims Cameron asked him to reconsider regulations giving prisoners a ‘balanced and nutritious diet’. Lewis says Cameron was passing on orders not from the home secretary, but from his wife, Sandra Howard, who thought the food rules were ‘too generous’. Howard strenuously denied that Cameron asked Lewis to keep vitamins out of the prisoners’ porridge, but Cameron certainly stood by Howard as he shifted the Tory party’s law and order strategy ever rightwards. Later, he went on to be part of ‘Team Howard’, the group campaigning to make Howard the Tory leader of the opposition.

Some people say Cameron’s Tory modernisation is all spin. Well he does have a history of dressing up cheap rubbish – having been Carlton TV’s spin-doctor in the 1990s.

Cameron's aides

Only this summer David Cameron admitted that he could fit his campaign team into the back of a taxi. George Osborne was the first MP on the back seat, followed by Michael Gove, Edward Vaizey, Andrew Robathan and Hugo Swire.

The flip seats were taken up by Catherine Fall, the chief of staff, and Steve Hilton, his strategist. George Eustice, the chief press officer, crouched on the floor and Boris Johnson climbed into the boot. They are now dubbed the June Cameroons, they are fluent in Cameroon and remain incredibly loyal to their chief.

By the end of the summer, Mr Cameron needed a minibus to take round his supporters. He had won the backing of some serious financial donors, the most important being Lord Harris of Peckham. He could still cram them all into one hotel room for meetings at the party conference.

But minutes after his speech, everything changed. The team couldn't keep up with the new applicants. By yesterday morning, 117 MPs had joined his campaign. And yesterday afternoon, it was confirmed that another 134,446 Tory voters had joined Camp David.

Gove & Vaizey

David Morrison writes:

Two other close associates of Cameron are newly elected Conservative MPs, Michael Gove and Ed Vaizey. Both, like Cameron, are in their late 30s. Gove was formerly a deputy editor of The Times, and is still a columnist there. Like Osborne, Gove is a fan of George Bush, and an enthusiast for Operation Iraqi Freedom. On 30 October 2005, on a BBC Panorama programme, he acted as the advocate for the indefinite occupation of Iraq.

Son of a Labour peer, Vaizey was a speechwriter for Michael Howard, and occasional columnist in the Guardian and other papers. (Cameron himself wrote a fortnightly diary of his political activity for The Guardian, beginning in early 2001, before he was elected to the House of Commons, and ending in the spring of 2004, by which time he was deputy chairman of his party.) Vaizey’s columns were a bland expression of the need for the Conservatives to “modernise” in some unspecified way. George Bush’s virtues were never mentioned, let alone praised. Unlike Osborne and Gove, he wasn’t obviously a neoconservative in foreign policy.

But, as Neil Clark pointed out in The Guardian, Vaizey and Gove are both signatories to the Statement of Principles of the British neoconservative organisation, The Henry Jackson Society Project for Democratic Geopolitics , which was launched in Peterhouse College, Cambridge earlier this year. Henry Jackson was a Democrat member of the US Congress for over 40 years until his death in 1983. He opposed détente with the Soviet Union, and is the ideological forbear of modern neo-conservatism. Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz worked for him in the 1970s, and went on to work for Ronald Reagan. “International patrons” of this British Society include the stars in the American neoconservative firmament, for example, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Editor of the Weekly Standard, Richard Perle and James Woolsey, former Director of the CIA.

Other aides

• Edward Llewellyn, 39, chief of staff. Mr Llewellyn went to Eton and Oxford with Mr Cameron and worked with him in the Conservative research department. When the Tories went into opposition he became adviser to Chris Patten, the new Governor in Hong Kong and worked with him on the handover. He has also worked with Paddy Ashdown in Bosnia.
• Catherine Fall, 38, deputy chief of staff.
• Steve Hilton, 36, spin doctor and strategist
• Lord Harris of Peckham and Andrew Feldman - donors. Lord Harris has bankrolled Camp David, donating £90,000 from his £250 million fortune made in carpets, and is tipped to become Tory treasurer. Mr Feldman, 39, was at Brasenose with Mr Cameron and was in the college tennis team with him. His family textile company Jayroma has donated to the campaign and Mr Feldman is likely to be offered the job of deputy treasurer.
• George Eustice, 34, head of press. A farmer for several years with his family in Cornwall before going into politics. He was lured away by Business for Sterling to recruit business supporters opposed to the euro and became hooked. Soon he was director of the anti-euro No campaign. In the 18 months before the election he was Michael Howard's deputy press secretary. Polite rather than scary, his role model is Sir Bernard Ingham, not Alastair Campbell.
• Gabrielle Bertin, 27, deputy press officer. Glamorous, impeccably dressed baby of the young campaign team. She worked for Mr Cameron when he was shadow education secretary, and previously as press officer to Liam Fox when he was co-chairman of the party. She ensures that Mr Cameron catches all his trains, helicopters and cars and that his tie is straight before he goes on air.
• Sophie Pim, 28, and Liz Sugg, 31 - events organisers

They ensured that Mr Cameron had his own make-up team for Jeremy Paxman so that - unlike David Davis - he did not end up looking like a ghoul. Liz Sugg worked for Sky News and Sophie Pim worked in public affairs before they met while managing media for the Conservative Euro-MPs. They wear skinny jeans and pumps as they race between meetings to ensure that their man has everything he needs before he goes on stage.

• Elder statesmen Chris Patten, the Chancellor of Oxford University, advises on tuitions policy.
• William Hague has given advice on the make-up of the shadow cabinet and how to plot the first 100 days.
• Oliver Letwin, who ruled himself out of the leadership race, has given policy advice.
• Nicholas Boles, the director of Policy Exchange, advises on gay issues and localisation.
• Mr Cameron's brother Alex, a QC, advises him on legal matters.
• Lord Lamont of Lerwick, his old boss, discusses economic direction.
• Lord Powell of Bayswater, Margaret Thatcher's aide, debates statesmanship.
• Rupert Hambro, chairman of J O Hambro investment bank, is helping him win over the city.
• Michael Green, the former chairman of Carlton, provides media advice.
• Dougie Smith

Memorable Quotes

"Every generation has to fight and win the argument for free trade and open markets."

DebkaFile, an Israeli right-wing website that often quotes Israeli intelligence officers, reports:

In an question-answer session at the Conservative Friends of Israel, Cameron said: "If what you mean by Zionist, someone who believes that the Jews have a right to a homeland in Israel and a right to their country then yes, I am a Zionist and I’m proud of the fact that Conservative politicians down the ages have played a huge role in helping to bring this about." The Conservative went on to say: There is something deep in our party’s DNA that believes in Israel, the right of Israel to exist, the right of Israel to defend itself and that a deal should only happen if it means that Israel is really allowed to have peace within secure borders and real guarantees about its future."

Contact, References and Resources

Resources

• Neil Clark, 'Cameron is no moderate: He supports the Iraq war and tax cuts, opposes EU social policies and has neocon associations', The Guardian, 24 October 2005. (surplus reference which wasn't actually used in previous version)