prime ministerial memoirs

David Cameron, For the Record (Harper, 2019)

The question posed by this enormous book (703 pages of text) is, does David Cameron really get how much of a disaster he inflicted on the UK by holding the Brexit referendum and then losing it?

And the answer is, sort of. This book is full of regrets at things not done or done not well enough, but mostly they take the form of regrets at not expressing himself clearly enough, with the implication that he must have failed because, if he'd succeeded, his perfectly formed views would have commanded universal assent. Uh-huh. I do wonder how much of the book's lengthy exposition of issues came from speeches that Cameron gave at the time, and if not, if he should have given them as speeches.

As for Brexit, Cameron defends holding the referendum on the grounds that the pressure to do so was so great that, had he resisted it, it would have broken out even more virulently later, and would be even more likely to have gone Leave than were the chances with the actual referendum. As for why it was lost, Cameron blames increased immigration, and for that he blames the UK having the best economy in Europe at the time, making everyone want to come there. So for losing the referendum he blames his own brilliant economic policies. What a guy.

For me, the most surprising and dismaying aspect of the book was the enormous amount of time Cameron had to spend arguing with other national leaders at EU summits. Usual scenario: the UK wants one policy, all the other countries want something else. Requirements for universal assent ought to prevent the UK from getting run over, but the EU staff usually find a way around that. This happens over and over again, leaving me a lot less puzzled than I had been as to why Leave won the referendum, but despite everything Cameron wants to Remain, on the grounds that it's better to have a seat at the table than not, regardless of how badly you're losing. But then at the end he undercuts this by looking on the bright side of Brexit by seeing it as an opportunity to forge a new relationship with Europe.

But the book is more than detailed accounts of issues and negotiations, wearisome though they are. Cameron puts in a fair amount about his personal life, notable especially for the illness and death of his small son, and how he felt about things, beginning with a description of his becoming PM (he then flashes back to his earlier life) focused on how he reacted and thought about what was happening. There's only so far he can go in that direction, but it's an attempt. Generally, Cameron thinks he was a pretty good PM who got a lot done, and I guess he was broadly competent in a way denied to all his successors to date: five of them in a mere ten years, an unending succession of clown cars, though May and Truss he considers to have been competent subordinates of his own, and perhaps they were. He is critical of a few subordinates, notably IDS whom he keeps not firing from Work and Pensions because he's afraid of the right-wing backlash if he does, and Steve Hilton whose description as "one part brilliant to several parts bonkers" I've already quoted. At one point, and one only, I cheered, and that's when Cameron quotes himself defending same-sex marriage as a conservative policy if properly viewed, a perspective I share.

However, the main lessons of this book seem to be 1) Cameron's hopeless optimism about Europe; 2) his terror at offending the right-wing rebels, so extreme that he'll do anything they want to keep them quiet. Neither of these policies actually work very well, so perhaps a different approach might have been superior.