David cameron

Theresa May isn’t much given to shows of emotion. When Andrea Leadsom called her to concede in the Tory leadership race, May was preparing for the first event of her nationwide campaign. She went ahead and delivered her speech, giving nothing away. But even May might be tempted to do a victory jig upon entering the leader’s suite at the Conservative party conference. Only a year ago, her leadership chances were being written off. Her ambition was a source of much amusement to Cameroons and her cabinet colleagues (including some now holding very senior jobs in her government). They thought her speech warning that ‘it’s impossible to build a cohesive society’ when immigration is too high was at odds with the one-nation, optimistic theme of that conference.

Although David Cameron's political career took a nose dive after the EU referendum result, he has been doing his best to ensure that his old chums don't too badly out of the situation. Take for example, Ed Llewellyn -- Cameron's former Chief of Staff. As well as being given a peerage in Cameron's resignation honours, Llewellyn has been appointed her Majesty’s Ambassador to France. While it had been previously reported that Cameron was lining up his mate for the plum job, the news has been confirmed today with a statement from Boris Johnson: 'Ed Llewellyn is hugely well qualified for this post and I look forward to working with him. He has served his country in Bosnia and Hong Kong and has extensive experience of Europe.

The Brexit bounce continues. HM Treasury has today released forecasts of the economists it follows, as it does every month. Last time, there was a flurry of downgrades and forecasts of an immediate recession. Now, these forecasts are being torn up by everyone, including by the FT (although you can bet the FT won't report on the upgrades as eagerly as it did the downgrades). The average new forecast suggests GDP will grow by 1.8 per cent this year, far better than the 1.5 per cent forecast last month. This back to where the consensus was before the Brexit vote. The OECD, which had previously predicted "immediate" uncertainty after a Brexit vote, has today also upgraded to 1.8pc for this year, saying instead that the pain will be felt next year (it predicts 0.9pc growth).

There’s a great scoop in The Times today. A political columnist, former chief leader writer of a national newspaper was, unbeknown to readers, acting as David Cameron’s chief stenographer for six years. In his columns he’d present himself as a former Tory official, retired and out of action. Full of self-deprecating anecdotes about what happened back in the day when he was working for William Hague. What he failed to disclose was that, in between writing opinion pieces for his newspaper and acting as its Executive Editor, he was scurrying off to Downing Street to take dictation for the Prime Minister on a monthly basis. He recorded Cameron’s ramblings, hoping a to use them for a memoir for which the PM is keen to bag a million quid.

David Cameron is not having the best of weeks and the Foreign Affairs Committee’s highly critical report on his Libya intervention will not improve his mood. When the Chilcot Report came out, Cameron made much of how the National Security Council structure that he had put in place had improved policy making. But the FAC report states that despite the National Security Council, there was still no coherent strategy for the intervention. Indeed, it calls for an inquiry into how the NSC actually makes policy. The Libya intervention might have prevented a massacre in Benghazi. But the chaos in Libya since, the migrant crisis and the increase influence of Islamic State there mean that it cannot be judged a success.

Is David Cameron trying to trash his own reputation? First came the worst resignation honours list for decades, which seemed designed to confirm everyone’s worst fears about his chumocracy. And today, he has handed a gift to those who denounced him as a career politician, someone with no sense of public service, whose interest in politics ran out when he thought it could no longer be useful to him. "Brits don't quit," he told us a few months ago: now he has quit, twice. After telling us several times that he'd stay, to fulfil a duty to parliament and his constituents. Even Gordon Brown fought another election after leaving No10 but Cameron has bolted, saying he has now decided that he'd be a “distraction”.

So, where are we at on Brexit? Well, we know that Theresa May wants immigration control as part of the deal which essentially rules out a Swiss or Norwegian style deal. But, as I report in The Sun, beyond that little is settled. As one Cabinet Minister said to me after the away day at Chequers this week, ‘The truth is that, at the moment, we’re still in the preparatory stage’. Cabinet Ministers were struck by how open the discussion was at Chequers. Unlike in the Cameron era, there was no early indication as to what the Prime Minister wanted the meeting to conclude. According to those present, one of the most forceful speakers was the Chancellor Philip Hammond. He emphasised that growth would be lower next year.

Theresa May was once seen as the continuity candidate to succeed David Cameron. However, since becoming Prime Minister she has gone on to sideline or backtrack many of Cameron and George Osborne's pet projects. As well as delaying Hinkley Point and leaving the Northern Powerhouse's future up in the air, she has provoked anger this week over the Government's childhood obesity strategy. While Cameron made clear that childhood obesity would be a flagship issue for his government -- with Jeremy Hunt even promising to take draconian measures -- May appears to take a different approach. In the report -- pushed out in recess -- May has scrapped plans to curb junk food advertising and created confusion over Osborne's sugar tax now that it will no longer be a tax on consumers.