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Explore a biography – Rt Hon David Cameron MP

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Rt Hon David Cameron MP

Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service


Constituency: Witney, South East

Majority: 22,740

Party: Conservative


Westminster

Rt Hon David Cameron MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA


Web: www.witneyconservatives.com






Political

Current posts

Leader, Conservative Party 2005-;
Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service 2010-

Electoral history

Contested Stafford 1997 general election. Member for Witney 2001-10, for Witney (revised boundary) since 6 May 2010 general election

Parliamentary Career

Shadow Minister for:
Privy Council Office 2003,
Local and Devolved Government Affairs 2004;
Member Shadow Cabinet 2004-10;
Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills 2005;
Leader of the Opposition 2005-10;
Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service 2010-

Past Select Committees

Member: Home Affairs 2001-04,
Modernisation of the House of Commons 2003

All-Party Groups

Chair, America Group 2010-

Party posts

Deputy Chairman Conservative Party 2003;
Head of Policy Co-ordination Conservative Party 2004;
Leader Conservative Party 2005-;
President, Conservative Friends of America

International bodies

Vice-President, Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (UK Branch) 2005-;
Patron, Atlantic Council of the UK;
President, British Inter-Parliamentary Union Group;
Hon. President, United Nations Association UK

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Personal

Full name

David William Donald Cameron

Parents

Son of late Ian Donald Cameron and Mary Fleur Cameron, née Mount

Educated

Eton College

Further education

Brasenose College, Oxford (BA philosophy, politics and economics 1988)

Marital details

Married Samantha Sheffield 1996 (2 sons (1 deceased) 2 daughters)

Non-political career

Conservative Research Department 1988-92:
Head of political section,
Member Prime Minister’s Question Time briefing team;
Special adviser to:
Norman Lamont as Chancellor of the Exchequer 1992-93,
Michael Howard as Home Secretary 1993-94;
Director of corporate affairs, Carlton Communications plc 1994-2001

Other organisations

Patron:
History of Parliament Group,
Westminster Foundation for Democracy;
Trustee, The Hunterian Collection;
Hon. Patron, European Union Youth Orchestra;
Vice-President, Hansard Society;
Governor, Ditchley Foundation;
Vice-President, Civil Service Sports Council

Honours and decorations

PC 2005

Awards

Hansard Society Opening Up Politics Award 2007;
The Times Person of the Year 2010


Date of birth

9 October 1966

Recreations

Tennis, cooking


Supported charities

President, Oxfordshire Beekeepers’ Association;
Vice-President, National Society for Epilepsy;
Trustee, Epilepsy Research UK;
Sponsor, Airey Neave Trust;
Patron:
Carterton Educational Trust,
Mulberry Bush School,
Trips, Outings and Activities for the Learning Disabled,
Bampton Classical Opera,
KIDS,
Lawrence Home Nursing Team,
British Schools Exploring Society,
Cancer Research UK Relay for Life, Witney,
Versus Cancer,
Motability,
The Diana Award,
The Peel Society,
Witney United Football Club,
Loomba Foundation,
Ley Community,
Friends of Wychwood,
Abdabs Youth Theatre,
St Margaret’s Church, Westminster

Clubs

Hon. Lords Taverner

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Profile

Overview
The former public relations man took just nine years, with no experience in government, to become the youngest Prime Minister for nearly two hundred years, forming the first full coalition Government since the Second World War. Despite worries to the contrary, he managed to stay in power in 2015, this time winning a majority government.


Background
Born in 1966, son of an estate agent and stockbroker and the descendant on his mother’s side of several Tory MPs. He can trace his ancestry back to King William IV.

Educated at Eton, he spent a gap year working for a Tory MP and travelling to the Far East. He flourished at Brasenose College, Oxford under Professor Vernon Bogdanor, who said he was one of the ablest students he had taught. He stayed clear of student politics, was a member of the Bullingdon Club, famous for its drunken revels, but still took first-class honours in philosophy, politics and economics.

Cameron then graduated to the political school of hard knocks. He was a special adviser to Michael Howard as Home Secretary and survived ‘Black Wednesday’ as adviser to Norman Lamont as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He worked for the Conservative Research Department for four years as head of the political section, helped to brief both Margaret Thatcher and John Major for Prime Minister’s Questions.

He left full-time politics for a while to be head of corporate affairs for Carlton Communications plc. His boss Michael Green predicted a glittering career in business, but he was determined to return to politics.

His wife Samantha is the daughter of a Lincolnshire landowner and stepdaughter of Viscount Astor. Their first child Ivan was born severely disabled with epilepsy and cerebral palsy and died in 2009 at the age of six. They have a daughter and a second son, and their fourth child, a daughter, was born in August 2010 while they were on holiday in Cornwall.


Political career
He stood for the notionally Conservative new seat of Stafford in 1997, where he lost to Labour's David Kidney by 4,314 on a swing of nearly 11 per cent.

He then landed safely in Douglas Hurd's old seat of Witney when Hurd's successor Shaun Woodward defected to Labour in 1999. He soon made his name as a frequent contributor to debates, especially on rural affairs and foot-and-mouth disease. He is an ardent campaigner for children with special needs.

He was first appointed to the Opposition frontbench in 2003 as Deputy Shadow Leader of the Commons. Michael Howard made him one of two Deputy Chairmen of the Party in 2003. In March 2004 he returned to the frontbench in the local government team, with special responsibility for finance.

He was responsible for the slimmed-down 2005 Manifesto, which attracted some criticism. He later accepted some responsibility for the failures of the election campaign.

His appointment as Shadow Education Secretary in 2005 gave him a platform to prove himself to a Party desperate for a new image.

He was a rank outsider when he launched his leadership bid in 2005. Starting with only a handful of supporters, though with the tacit backing of his predecessor Michael Howard, he built up a powerful campaign, attracting many of the younger MPs and a wide cross-section of the parliamentary party.

Presenting himself as the modernisers’ candidate, a centrist with a conscience, he called for radical change in the Party. He came second in the first ballot among MPs, but the elimination of Kenneth Clarke swelled his supporters from the Left, and he easily overtook Davis in the second. He has espoused many traditional Tory views, such as low taxes and a strong emphasis on the family; he immediately set about moving his Party to the centre ground.

He has his enemies in the Tory grassroots, many did not like his changes in style and his innovations in candidate selection. Others believe that he should have done better at the polls, given the unpopularity of Gordon Brown’s Labour Government. However, he took the Tory Party demoralised by three election defeats by the scruff of the neck, gave it confidence and changed its image.

It was five days after he failed to win an outright majority in the 2010 general election before he was able to reach agreement on a coalition with the third-placed Liberal Democrats and take the seals of office.

During the first press conference the Prime Minister admitted that when asked for his favourite political joke, he had once replied: “Nick Clegg”. The laughter was short-lived with Clegg becoming his deputy. Cameron gave Clegg the Alternative Vote referendum as part of the Coalition agreement.

As Prime Minister, his government has focused its economic policy on deficit reduction and restoring confidence in the economy with a host of public expenditure reductions, particularly in welfare spending. For the first three years of his premiership Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne came under fire from the opposition and Conservative backbenchers.

The ‘omnishambles’ budget of 2012, with the introduction of the ‘grannie tax’ and ‘pasty tax’ and a host of u-turns in its wake, further weakened the government’s case for austerity, which hit a low point in April 2013 when credit rating agency Fitch downgraded the UK’s rating from AAA to AA+.

When strong growth returned in 2013 new life was breathed into the government’s agenda with unemployment falling and GDP rising Cameron and Osborne hailed a government “sticking to its guns”. The feel-good factor within the government ranks has also been enhanced by the introduction of popular policies such as the ‘Help-to-Buy’ scheme and falls in youth unemployment.

In 2011 he strongly defended his decision to involve Britain in the campaign in Libya, acknowledging that the UK did not have to get involved. He said the intervention was “necessary, legal and right” and that failure to act would have resulted in the “slaughter of civilians”.

At the G8 summit held in Northern Ireland in June 2013 the conflict in Syria was high up on the agenda and after the suspected chemical weapons attack in Damascus in August 2013, MPs rejected possible UK military action against. Cameron said he would respect the defeat of a government motion.

In 2011 the Leveson Inquiry proved to be a demanding episode for the Prime Minister as his friendly relations with Rebekah Brooks were revealed through his texting of “LOL” being published; and the extent of Andy Coulson’s, his former Director of Communications, involvement in the phone hacking scandal.

With the rise of UKIP and EU membership a contentious issue for the Conservative Party – decisions on an opt-out referendum have become part of the electoral landscape and a tug of war on support for Cameron’s leadership.

Cameron has aimed to move away from traditional negative Tory values, he will be known as the prime minister who oversaw the legalisation of same-sex marriage in 2013. He has pushed for equality for women, minorities and those with a disability. Some were sceptical about how much he can achieve as he failed in the one area he has direct influence; his pledge to have one third of his frontbench consist of female MPs did not emerge in his first term.

He managed to successfully campaign to keep Scotland and England "Better Together".

In an election where the polls were neck and neck, a hung Parliament was almost certain and Cameron could have lost his role, a shock election result swung him and his party to victory on 7 May 2015. When he won his seat he called for "one nation, one UK".

His first task was to appoint a new cabinet, where he kept most of the big hitters in place and finally achieved his aim of making one third of the cabinet women. In an unusual move he allowed the first cabinet meeting to be filmed.

He stated that an early priority was to bring in changes to childcare. Another very early announcement in his new government was to say that the party would fast-track through anti-terror laws.

He won another contest later in the year, when he won the Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Award.

One of the largest issues in his 2015-20 government he had to deal with was the promised EU referendum. He negotiated an improved deal for Britain to remain within the European Union, and then called a referendum to be held on 23rd June 2016, with only four months notice. After much speculation he allowed all Ministers to campaign for either In or Out as they wished.

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Contact

   Address as: Prime Minister


Westminster address

Rt Hon David Cameron MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA


Web: www.witneyconservatives.com

Ministry Office

Rt Hon David Cameron MP
Prime Minister’s Office
10 Downing Street
London
SW1A 2AA


Web: www.number-10.gov.uk

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Constituency address

Rt Hon David Cameron MP
No constituency office















Staff

Parliamentary Private Secretary Gavin Williamson

Rt Hon Ed Llewellyn (Chief of Staff)
Craig Oliver (Political and Communications Director & Deputy Chief of Staff)
Camilla Cavendish (Director of Policy Unit)
Graeme Wilson (Press Secretary to the Prime Minister)
Baroness Fall (Deputy Chief of Staff)
Ameet Gill OBE (Director of Strategy)
Liz Sugg CBE (Director of Operations and Campaigns)
Daniel Korski (Deputy Director)
Gabby Bertin (Director of External Relations)
Giles Kenningham (Head of Press)
Caroline Preston (Head of Broadcasting)
Laurence Mann CBE (Political Secretary)
Martha Varney (Head of Operations)
Jessica Cunniffe (Speechwriter)

Political Advisers:
Adam Atashzai
Laura Trott
Sheridan Westlake
Ed de Minckwitz
Richard Chew

Special Advisers, Policy Unit:
Nick Seddon Christian Guy
Stephen Heidari-Robinson
Rachel Wolf
Max Chambers
Alex Morton
Richard Parr

Special Advisers, EU Reform Unit: Mats Persson
Kate Marley

Simon Case (Principal Private Secretary)
Private Secretaries:
Nigel Casey
Tim Kiddell
Will Macfarlane
Brendan Threlfall
Ed Whiting

Nicholas Howard (Assistant Private Secretary)
Helen Bower (Prime Minister's Official Spokesperson)
Nicholas Perry (Military Assistant)
Abigail Green (Political Correspondence Manager)

Caroline Balcon (Constituency Secretary)
Rose Rawlins (Constituency Research Assistant and Local Press Officer)
Emma Quarterman (Constituency Caseworker and Research Assistant)
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Election

Witney general election 2010

Candidate Name Party Votes Share of the vote
CAMERON * David Conservative 33,973 58.69%
BARNES    Dawn Liberal Democrat 11,233 19.41%
GOLDBERG Joe    Labour 7,511 12.98%
MACDONALD Stuart Green Party 2,385 4.13%
TOLSTOY-MILOSLAVSKY Nikolai UK Independence Party 2,001 3.46%
HOPE Alan “Howling Laud” Official Monster Raving Loony Party 234 0.41%
WESSON Paul Independent 166 0.29%
COOK Johnnie Independent 151 0.27%
BEX Colin Wessex Regionalists 62 0.11%
BARSCHAK Aaron Independent 53 0.1%

Conservative majority 22,740
Majority % 39.28
Electorate 78,766
Papers issued 57,886 
Turnout % 73.49
Swing Con Hold (Notional 6.25% from Liberal Democrat to Conservative)
* Member of last Parliament

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