Copyright

William Collins

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This ebook first published in Great Britain by William Collins 2015

Copyright © 2015 Anthony Seldon and Peter Snowdon

Anthony Seldon and Peter Snowdon assert the moral

right to be identified as the authors of this work

Principal researchers: Jonathan Meakin and Illias Thoms

All profits from Anthony Seldon’s writing are given to charity

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

Cover photograph © Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007575510

Ebook Edition © September 2015 ISBN: 9780007575527

Version: 2016-07-05

Dedication

To Julia Snowdon and Joanna Seldon

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Frontispiece

Dedication

List of Illustrations

Dramatis Personae

Introduction to the Paperback Edition: Cameron at 10: 2010–16: The Verdict

1 First Night in Downing Street: 11 May 2010

2 Origin of ‘Plan A’: September 2008– February 2010

3 ‘If we win’: 6–12 May 2010

4 Delivering Plan A: May–October 2010

5 Bloody Sunday Statement: 15 June 2010

6 Chequers Summit on Afghanistan: June 2010

7 Life and Death in the Cameron Family: February 2009–September 2010

8 Coulson Departure: May 2010–February 2011

9 Taking on Gaddafi: February–September 2011

10 AV Referendum: Coalition Buckles: January–May 2011

11 Scottish Referendum Call: May 2011–February 2012

12 London Riots: August 2011

13 The Big Society and Beyond: May 2010–April 2012

14 The EU: Back Burner to Veto: May 2010–December 2011

15 The NHS Debacle: November 2009–September 2012

16 Cameron and Obama: March 2012

17 Omnishambles Budget: March 2012

18 Olympian Summer, Olympian Difficulties: May–September 2012

19 Lords and Boundaries: January–December 2012

20 Halfway Point: Autumn Blues: September–December 2012

21 Cameron Pledges a Referendum: April 2012–February 2013

22 Gay Marriage Saga: October 2011–July 2013

23 Lynton to the Rescue?: January 2013–October 2014

24 Warfare Over Welfare: May 2010–December 2014

25 The Darkest Hour Before Dawn: January–June 2013

26 The Iron Lady’s Long Shadow: April 2013

27 Maximum Danger: Syria Vote: August 2013

28 Essay Crisis Autumn: September 2013–February 2014

29 China Warms, Russia Cools: October 2013–March 2014

30 2014 Budget: Powering the North: March 2014–February 2015

31 The UKIP Challenge: 2013–2014

32 The Gove Reshuffle: July 2014

33 Scotland Decides: September 2014

34 EU Tribulations: January–June 2014

35 Final Autumn: September–December 2014

36 Controlling Immigration: November 2014

37 Farewell Washington: January 2015

38 A Diminished Britain?: September 2014–March 2015

39 The Coalition Endures: November 2014–March 2015

40 ‘If we lose’: March–May 2015

41 ‘The sweetest victory’: 7–8 May 2015

42 Road to Nowhere: May 2015–June 2016

43 Full Circle: 23–24 June 2016

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

Notes

Index

By Anthony Seldon and Peter Snowdon

About the Publisher

List of Illustrations

Frontispiece: Cameron and his team inside Number 10 on the morning after the Scottish Referendum, 19 September 2014. Craig Oliver and Kate Fall are on the left of the picture (© Crown Copyright/Arron Hoare)

Chapter 1: David and Samantha Cameron enter Number 10 after winning the general election, 11 May 2010 (© Andrew Parsons/i-Images)

Chapter 2: David Cameron and William Hague at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, 30 September 2008 (© Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Chapter 3: David Cameron and Nick Clegg inside Number 10 (© Andrew Parsons/i-Images)

Chapter 4: George Osborne leaves 11 Downing Street to deliver his first Budget as chancellor, 22 June 2010 (© ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy)

Chapter 5: People cheer outside the Guild Hall in Londonderry, Northern Ireland as David Cameron reads a statement on the Bloody Sunday inquiry, 15 June 2010 (© Peter Muhly/AFP/Getty Images)

Chapter 6: David Cameron addresses British soldiers at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province on 11 June 2010 (© Stefan Rousseau/AFP/Getty Images)

Chapter 7: David Cameron embraces his father Ian in Swindon, 18 April 2010 (© Toby Melville/WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Chapter 8: Andy Coulson leaves Number 10 following his resignation on 21 January 2011 (© Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

Chapter 9 : Nicolas Sarkozy speaks to the crowd in Benghazi as David Cameron listens, 15 September 2011 (© Philippe Wojazer/AFP/Getty Images)

Chapter 10: David Cameron before delivering a speech against a proposed change to the UK voting system on 18 April 2011 (© Oli Scarff/WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Chapter 11: David Cameron meets Alex Salmond during talks on the Scottish independence referendum in St Andrews House in Edinburgh, 16 February 2012 (© David Cheskin/WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Chapter 12: David Cameron talks to Acting Borough Commander Police Superintendent Jo Oakley in Croydon on 9 August 2011, following the London riots (© Stefan Rousseau/AFP/Getty Images)

Chapter 13: Steve Hilton arrives in Downing Street on 21 February 2012 (© Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

Chapter 14: David Cameron greets Angela Merkel outside Chequers, 30 October 2010 (© Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images)

Chapter 15: David Cameron, press officer Gabby Bertin and operations head Liz Sugg leave after meeting workers at Dudley Ambulance Station on 5 May 2010 (© Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

Chapter 16: David Cameron and Barack Obama in the Rose Garden of the White House, 14 March 2012 (© Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Chapter 17: George Osborne is shown making his Budget speech on television screens in an electrical store, 21 March 2012 (© David Moir/Reuters/Corbis)

Chapter 18: David Cameron and Boris Johnson in London, 16 April 2012 (© Olivia Harris/AFP/Getty Images)

Chapter 19: David Cameron and Nick Clegg at the Olympic Park, 12 May 2011 (© Pool/Reuters/Corbis)

Chapter 20: David Cameron with his wife Samantha before delivering his speech on the last day of the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, 9 October 2012 (© Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

Chapter 21: David Cameron, Jeremy Heywood and Ed Llewellyn (standing) during a cabinet meeting in the Olympic handball arena, 9 January 2012 (© REX Shutterstock)

Chapter 22: Rainbow flag flies over Victoria Tower in support of gay marriage, June 2013 (© Nicolas Chinardet/Demotix/Corbis)

Chapter 23: David Cameron and Lynton Crosby (© Andrew Parsons/i-Images)

Chapter 24: Iain Duncan Smith leaves Number 10 after a Cabinet meeting, 19 March 2014 (© Paul Marriott/Alamy)

Chapter 25: George Osborne arrives at Downing Street with Rupert Harrison, 28 February 2011 (© Steve Back/REX Shutterstock)

Chapter 26: David Cameron and Margaret Thatcher outside Number 10, 8 June 2010 (© Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters/Corbis)

Chapter 27: David Cameron addresses the House of Commons during the Syria debate, 29 August 2013 (© Pool/Reuters/Corbis)

Chapter 28: David Cameron in Fordgate, Somerset, 7 February 2014 (© Tim Ireland/epa/Corbis)

Chapter 29: David Cameron and Vladimir Putin at the G8 summit at Lough Erne, 17 June 2013 (© Yves Herman/Reuters/Corbis)

Chapter 30: George Osborne delivers a speech in Salford on the Northern Powerhouse in May 2015 (© Christopher Furlong – WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Chapter 31: Douglas Carswell and Nigel Farage in Clacton-on-Sea, 10 October 2014 (© Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images)

Chapter 32: Michael Gove leaves Downing Street on the day of the reshuffle, 15 July 2014 (© Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

Chapter 33: Cameron and his core team inside Number 10 on the morning after the Scottish Referendum at about 5 a.m., 19 September 2014. Chris Martin, Kate Fall and Ed Llewellyn standing (l–r), George Osborne sitting, Craig Oliver to the right of Cameron (© Crown Copyright/Arron Hoare)

Chapter 34: David Cameron and Jean-Claude Juncker at the EU summit in Brussels, 30 August 2014 (© John Thys/AFP/Getty Images)

Chapter 35: George Osborne leaves the Treasury for Parliament, 3 December 2014 (© WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Chapter 36: David Cameron delivers a speech on immigration in Rocester, 28 November 2014 (Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images)

Chapter 37: David Cameron and Barack Obama in the White House, 16 January 2015 (© Ron Sachs/Corbis)

Chapter 38: David Cameron at the NATO summit in Newport, 3 September 2014 (© Ben Gurr – WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Chapter 39: Oliver Letwin and Danny Alexander, 26 February 2013 (© REX Shutterstock)

Chapter 40: David Cameron campaigns in Carlisle, 6 May 2015 (© Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Chapter 41: David and Samantha Cameron celebrate the general election results, 8 May 2015 (© Andrew Parsons/i-Images)

Chapter 42: David Cameron delivers a speech on the EU at the British Museum, 9 May 2016 (© Jack Hill/WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Chapter 43: David Cameron resigns outside 10 Downing Street, 24 June 2016 (© Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Dramatis Personae

The lists below are not exhaustive, and only contain names that appear in the book.

‘LD’ = Liberal Democrat

‘2015’ = Still in position at the time of the 2015 general election

The Quad

CAMERON, DAVID – Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 2010–15. Leader of the Conservative Party, 2005–15.

CLEGG, NICK – Deputy Prime Minister, 2010–15. Leader of the Liberal Democrats, 2007–15.

OSBORNE, GEORGE – Chancellor of the Exchequer, 2010–15. Shadow Chancellor, 2005–10.

ALEXANDER, DANNY – Secretary of State for Scotland, 12–29 May 2010. Chief Secretary to the Treasury, 2010–15. LD.

No 10 (Officials and Political Staff)

BERTIN, GABBY – Press Secretary, 2005–12. Director of External Relations, 2013–15.

BOWLER, JAMES – Principal Private Secretary, 2010–12.

CASE, SIMON – Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, 2012–13. Deputy Principal Private Secretary, 2013–14. Executive Director, Implementation Group at the Cabinet Office, 2014–15.

CASEY, NIGEL – Foreign Affairs Private Secretary, 2014–15.

CASSON, JOHN – Foreign Affairs Private Secretary, 2011–14.

CHAMBERS, MAX – Policy Unit, 2014–15.

CHATWIN, TIM – Head of Strategic Communications, 2010–11.

COOPER, ANDREW – Director of Strategy, 2011–13.

COULSON, ANDY – Director of Communications, 2010–11.

DOWDEN, OLIVER – Political Adviser, 2010–13. Deputy Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister, 2013–14.

DUNLOP, ANDREW – Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on Scotland, 2011–15.

FALL, KATE – Deputy Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister, 2010–15

FELDMAN, ANDREW – Chairman of the Conservative Party, 2010–15.

FIELD, STEVE – Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman, 2010–12.

FLETCHER, TOM – Foreign Affairs Private Secretary, 2010–11.

FOGES, CLARE – Speechwriter, 2009–15.

GILBERT, STEPHEN – Political Secretary, 2010–15.

GILL, AMEET – Special Adviser, Head of ‘Grid’ Planning, 2010–15.

GLOVER, JULIAN – Speechwriter, 2011–12. Special Adviser, Department of Transport, 2012–15.

HEYWOOD, JEREMY – Downing Street Permanent Secretary, 2010–11. Cabinet Secretary, 2012–15.

HILTON, STEVE – Director of Strategy, 2010–12.

JOHNSON, JO – Head of the Policy Unit, 2013–15. Cabinet Office Minister, 2013–15.

KIDDELL, TIM – Private Secretary to the Prime Minister and Speechwriter, 2010–15.

KIRBY, PAUL – Head of Policy Unit, 2011–13.

KORSKI, DAN – Special Adviser, 2013–15.

LLEWELLYN, ED – Downing Street Chief of Staff, 2010–15.

LOCKWOOD, CHRIS – Deputy Head, Policy Unit, 2013–15.

MANN, LAURENCE – Political Private Secretary, 2010–15.

MARTIN, CHRIS – Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, 2012–15.

MCDONALD, SIMON – Foreign Policy Adviser, 2010–11. Ambassador to Germany, 2011–15.

O’DONNELL, GUS – Cabinet Secretary, 2005–11.

O’SHAUGHNESSY, JAMES – Director of Policy, 2007–11.

OLIVER, CRAIG – Director of Communications, 2011–15.

SALTER, MICHAEL – Political Head of Broadcasting, 2010–15.

SCHOLAR, TOM – Second Permanent Secretary at the Treasury, 2009–13. Adviser, European and Global Issues, 2013–15.

SEDDON, NICK – Policy Unit, 2013–15.

SILVA, ROHAN – Senior Policy Adviser, 2010–13.

SUGG, LIZ – Head of Operations, 2010–15.

WILLIAMSON, GAVIN – Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, 2013–15.

WORTH, SEAN – Special Adviser, 2010–12. LD.

Cabinet

CABLE, VINCE – Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, 2010–15. LD.

CARMICHAEL, ALISTAIR – Secretary of State for Scotland, 2013–15. LD.

CLARKE, KENNETH – Lord Chancellor, Secretary of State for Justice, 2010–12. Minister without Portfolio, 2012–14. Chancellor, 1993–7.

DUNCAN SMITH, IAIN – Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, 2010–15. Leader of the Conservative Party, 2001–3.

FALLON, MICHAEL – Secretary of State for Defence, 2014–15.

FOX, LIAM – Secretary of State for Defence, 2010–11.

GOVE, MICHAEL – Secretary of State for Education, 2010–14. Chief Whip, 2014–15. Lord Chancellor, Secretary of State for Justice, 2015.

GRAYLING, CHRIS – Minister for Employment, 2010–12. Lord Chancellor, Secretary of State for Justice, 2012–15.

GREENING, JUSTINE – Secretary of State for Transport, 2011–12. Secretary of State for International Development, 2012–15.

HAGUE, WILLIAM – Foreign Secretary, 2010–14. First Secretary of State, 2010–15. Leader of the House of Commons, 2014–15. Leader of the Conservative Party, 1997–2001.

HAMMOND, PHILIP – Secretary of State for Transport, 2010–11. Secretary of State for Defence, 2011–14. Foreign Secretary, 2014–15.

HILL, JONATHAN – Leader of the House of Lords, 2013–14. European Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, 2014–15.

HUHNE, CHRIS – Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, 2010–12. LD.

HUNT, JEREMY – Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, 2010–12. Secretary of State for Health, 2012–15.

JAVID, SAJID – Secretary to the Treasury, 2012–14. Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport, 2014–15.

LANSLEY, ANDREW – Secretary of State for Health, 2010–12. Leader of the House of Commons, 2012–14.

MAY, THERESA – Home Secretary, 2010–15.

MCLOUGHLIN, PATRICK – Chief Whip, 2010–12. Secretary of State for Transport, 2012–15.

MILLER, MARIA – Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, 2012–14.

MITCHELL, ANDREW – Secretary of State for International Development, 2010–12. Chief Whip, 2012.

MOORE, MICHAEL – Secretary of State for Scotland, 2010–13. LD.

MORGAN, NICKY – Secretary of State for Education, 2014–15.

PATERSON, OWEN – Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, 2010–12. Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2012–14.

PICKLES, ERIC – Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, 2010–15.

SPELMAN, CAROLINE – Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2010–12.

STRATHCLYDE, TOM – Leader of the House of Lords, 2010–13.

TRUSS, LIZ – Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2014–15.

VILLIERS, THERESA – Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, 2012–15.

WARSI, SAYEEDA – Chairman of the Conservative Party, 2010–12. Minister without Portfolio, 2010–12. Minister for Faith and Communities, 2012–14.

Also attending Cabinet:

GRIEVE, DOMINIC – Attorney General, 2010–14.

HANCOCK, MATTHEW – Minister for Business and Enterprise, Minister for Energy, and Minister for Portsmouth, 2014–15.

LAWS, DAVID – Chief Secretary to the Treasury, 12 May–29 May 2010. Minister for Schools, 2012–15. Minister for the Cabinet Officer, 2012–15. LD.

LETWIN, OLIVER – Minister for Government Policy, 2010–15.

MAUDE, FRANCIS – Minister for the Cabinet Office, 2010–15.

MCVEY, ESTHER – Minister for Employment, 2013–15.

SHAPPS, GRANT – Chairman of the Conservative Party, 2012–15. Minister without Portfolio, 2012–15.

STOWELL, TINA – Leader of the House of Lords, 2014–15.

WILLETTS, DAVID – Minister for Universities and Science, 2010–14.

WRIGHT, JEREMY – Attorney General, 2014–15.

YOUNG, GEORGE – Leader of the House of Commons, 2010–12. Chief Whip, 2012–14.

Other Ministers

BOLES, NICK – Minister for Planning, Department for Communities and Local Government, 2012–14. Minister for Skills and Equalities, 2014–15.

DUNCAN, ALAN – Minister for International Development, 2010–14.

FEATHERSTONE, LYNNE – Minister for the Home Office, 2014–15. Parliamentary Under-Secretary for International Development, 2012–14. Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Equalities, 2010–12. LD.

HERBERT, NICK – Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, 2010–12.

WEBB, STEVE – Minister for Pensions, 2010–15. LD.

Office of Deputy Prime Minister (All Liberal Democrats)

ASTLE, JULIAN – Special Adviser, 2010–15.

COLBOURNE, TIM – Special Adviser, 2010–13. Deputy Chief of Staff, 2014–15.

MACKENZIE, POLLY – Senior Adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister, 2010–15.

OATES, JONNY – Deputy Communications Adviser, 2010. Chief of Staff, 2010–15.

PIETSCH, LENA – Press Secretary, 2010–15.

REEVES, RICHARD – Director of Strategy, 2010–12.

Whitehall (Treasury, Special Advisers, Civil Servants, Military and Security)

CAINE, JONATHAN – Special Adviser to Owen Paterson, 2010–12. Special Adviser to Theresa Villiers, 2012–15.

CARNEY, MARK – Governor of the Bank of England, 2013–15.

CASEY, LOUISE – Director General, Troubled Families, 2011–15.

CHOTE, ROBERT – Chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility, 2010–15.

COWPER-COLES, SHERARD – UK Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2009–10.

CUMMINGS, DOMINIC – Special Adviser to Michael Gove, 2011–13.

CUNLIFFE, JON – British Permanent Representative to the EU, 2012–13. Deputy Governor of the Bank of England for Financial Stability, 2013–15.

CUNNINGHAM, FIONA – Special Adviser to Theresa May, 2010–14.

DARROCH, KIM – British Permanent Representative to the EU, 2007–12. National Security Adviser, 2012–15.

DEIGHTON, PAUL – Commercial Secretary to the Treasury, 2013–15.

DEVEREUX, ROBERT – Permanent Secretary, Department of Work and Pensions, 2011–15.

EVANS, JONATHAN – Director General of MI5, 2007–13.

FRASER, SIMON – Permanent Under-Secretary of the Foreign Office, 2010–15.

GEIDT, CHRISTOPHER – Private Secretary to the Sovereign, 2007–15.

HANDS, GREG – Deputy Chief Whip, 2013–15.

HARRISON, RUPERT – Chief of Staff to George Osborne, 2010–15.

HOUGHTON, NICK – Chief of the Defence Staff, 2013–15.

KERSLAKE, BOB – Head of the Home Civil Service, 2012–14.

KING, JULIAN – Ambassador to Ireland, 2009–11. Director General of the Northern Ireland Office, 2011–14.

KING, MERVYN – Governor of the Bank of England, 2003–13.

LAMB, GRAEME – Commander Field Army, 2007–09.

LEWIS, LEIGH – Permanent Secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions, 2006–11.

LYALL GRANT, MARK – British Ambassador to the United Nations, 2009–15.

MACPHERSON, NICHOLAS – Permanent Secretary at the Treasury, 2005–15.

PARKER, ANDREW – Director General of MI5, 2013–15.

PARKER, NICK – Deputy Commander, International Security Assistance Force, 2009–10. Commander-in-Chief, Land Forces, 2010–11. Commander Land Forces, 2011–12.

PATEY, WILLIAM – British Ambassador to Afghanistan, 2010–12.

POWELL, HUGH – Deputy National Security Adviser, 2013–14.

RICHARDS, DAVID – Chief of the General Staff, 2009–10. Chief of the Defence Staff, 2010–13.

RICKETTS, PETER – National Security Adviser, 2010–12. British Ambassador to France, 2012–15.

ROGERS, IVAN – British Permanent Representative to the European Union, 2013–15.

ROGERS, THEA – Special Adviser to the Chancellor, 2013–15.

RUSSELL, BETH – Principal Private Secretary to the Chancellor, 2011–13. Director, Personal Tax, Welfare and Pensions, 2013–15.

SANTS, HECTOR – Chief Executive of the Financial Services Authority, 2007–12.

SAWERS, JOHN – Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), 2009–14.

SHEINWALD, NIGEL – British Ambassador to the United States, 2007–12.

SHIPLEE, HOWARD – Director General of the Universal Credit Programme, 2013–14.

STANHOPE, MARK – First Sea Lord, 2009–13.

STIRRUP, JOCK – Chief of the Defence Staff, 2006–10.

STROUD, PHILIPPA – Special Adviser to Iain Duncan Smith, 2010–15.

TIMOTHY, NICK – Special Adviser to Theresa May, 2010–15.

TUCKER, PAUL – Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, 2009–13.

VICKERS, JOHN – Chair of the Independent Commission on Banking, 2010–11.

WALL, PETER – Chief of the General Staff, 2010–14.

WESTMACOTT, PETER – British Ambassador to the United States, 2012–15.

WILSHAW, MICHAEL – Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills, 2012–15.

WOLFSON (NÉE SHAWCROSS), ELEANOR – Special Adviser to the Chancellor, 2010–15.

YOUNGER, ALEX – Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), 2014–15.

Conservative Party (All members of, or closely aligned with, the Conservative Party)

BRADY, GRAHAM – MP for Altrincham and Sale West. Chairman of the 1922 Committee, 2010–15.

CROSBY, LYNTON – Australian political strategist. Director of 2015 campaign, 2012–15.

CRUDDAS, PETER – Conservative Party Co-treasurer, 2011–12.

DAVIDSON, RUTH – Leader of the Scottish Conservatives, 2011–15.

JOHNSON, BORIS – Mayor of London, 2008–15.

MAJOR, JOHN – Prime Minister, 1990–1997.

NORMAN, JESSE – MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire.

SOAMES, NICHOLAS – MP for Mid Sussex.

SPICER, MICHAEL – MP for West Worcestershire. Chairman of 1922 Committee, 2001–10.

STEWART, RORY – MP for Penrith and The Border. Chair of the Defence Select Committee, 2014–15.

Other UK

ALEXANDER, DOUGLAS – Shadow Foreign Secretary, 2011–15.

BALLS, ED – Shadow Chancellor, 2011–15.

BERCOW, JOHN – Speaker of the House of Commons, 2009–15.

BROWN, GORDON – Prime Minister, 2007–10.

DARLING, ALISTAIR – Chair of the Better Together Campaign, 2012–14.

FARAGE, NIGEL – Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), 2010–15.

HARMAN, HARRIET – Acting Leader of the Labour Party, May–September 2010. Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, 2007–15.

LEVESON, BRIAN – Judge. Chairman of the Leveson Inquiry, 2011–12.

LUCAS, CAROLINE – Leader of the Green Party, 2008–12.

MILIBAND, ED – Leader of the Labour Party, 2010–15.

ROBINSON, PETER – First Minister of Northern Ireland, 2008–15. Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, 2008–15.

SALMOND, ALEX – First Minister of Scotland, 2007–14. Leader of the Scottish National Party, 2004–14.

STEVENS, SIMON – CEO of NHS England, 2014–15.

STURGEON, NICOLA – First Minister of Scotland, 2014–15. Leader of the Scottish National Party, 2014–15.

WEI, NAT – Social entrepreneur. Government adviser, 2010–11.

USA

BIDEN, JOE – Vice President, 2009–15.

BLOOMBERG, MICHAEL – Mayor of New York City, 2002–13.

CLINTON, HILLARY – Secretary of State, 2009–13

DONILON, THOMAS – National Security Advisor, 2010–13.

EMANUEL, RAHM – White House Chief of Staff, 2009–10.

GATES, ROBERT – Secretary of Defense, 2006–11.

GIBBS, ROBERT – White House Press Secretary, 2009–11.

KERRY, JOHN – Secretary of State, 2013–15.

KNAPP, BILL – Media strategist and consultant.

OBAMA, BARACK – President of the United States, 2009–15.

RICE, SUSAN – National Security Advisor, 2013–15.

YELLEN, JANET – Chair of the United States Federal Reserve, 2014–15.

Europe

ASHTON, CATHERINE – High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, 2009–14. Vice President of the European Commission, 2010–14.

BARNIER, MICHEL – European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, 2010–14.

BERLUSCONI, SILVIO – Prime Minister of Italy, 1994–1995, 2001–06, 2008–11.

DRAGHI, MARIO – President of the European Central Bank, 2011–15.

HOLLANDE, FRANÇOIS – President of France, 2012–15.

JUNCKER, JEAN-CLAUDE – Prime Minister of Luxembourg, 1995–13. President of the European Commission, 2014–15.

KATAINEN, JYRKI – Prime Minister of Finland, 2011–14.

KENNY, ENDA – Taoiseach, 2011–15.

LAGARDE, CHRISTINE – Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, 2011–15.

MERKEL, ANGELA – Chancellor of Germany, 2005–15.

MEYER-LANDRUT, NIKOLAUS – Adviser to Angela Merkel on European Affairs, 2011–15.

MONTI, MARIO – Prime Minister of Italy, 2011–13.

ORBÁN, VIKTOR – Prime Minister of Hungary, 2010–15.

RAJOY, MARIANO – Prime Minister of Spain, 2011–15.

REINFELDT, FREDERIK – Prime Minister of Sweden, 2006–14.

RENZI, MATTEO – Prime Minister of Italy, 2014–15.

RUTTE, MARK – Prime Minister of the Netherlands, 2010–15.

SARKOZY, NICOLAS – President of France, 2007–12.

SCHULZ, MARTIN – Leader of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, 2004–12, 2014. President of the European Parliament, 2014–15.

THORNING-SCHMIDT, HELLE – Prime Minister of Denmark, 2011–15.

TUSK, DONALD – Prime Minister of Poland, 2007–14. President of the European Council, 2014–15.

VAN ROMPUY, HERMAN – President of the European Council, 2009–14.

WESTERWELLE, GUIDO – German Foreign Minister, 2009–13.

International (UN, other foreign PMs, etc.)

AL-ABADI, HAIDER – Prime Minister of Iraq, 2014–15.

AL-ASSAD, BASHAR – President of Syria, 2000–15.

AL-MALIKI, NOURI – Prime Minister of Iraq, 2006–14.

AL-THANI, HAMAD BIN JASSIM BIN JABER (‘HBJ’) – Prime Minister of Qatar, 2007–13.

BAN KI-MOON – Secretary General of the United Nations, 2007–15.

DALAI LAMA – Tibetan spiritual leader, 1950–2015.

ERDOGAN, RECEP TAYYIP – Prime Minister of Turkey, 2003–14. President of Turkey, 2014–15.

GADDAFI, MUAMMAR – De facto ruler of Libya, 1969–2011.

HARPER, STEPHEN – Prime Minister of Canada, 2006–15.

JIABAO, WEN – Premier of China, 2003–13.

JINTAO, HU – President of China, 2002–12.

KARZAI, HAMID – President of Afghanistan, 2004–14.

KEQIANG, LI – Premier of China, 2013–15.

LAVROV, SERGEI – Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, 2004–15.

MEDVEDEV, DMITRI – President of Russia, 2008–12. Prime Minister of Russia, 2012–15.

NETANYAHU, BENJAMIN – Prime Minister of Israel, 2009–15.

POROSHENKO, PETRO – President of Ukraine, 2014–15.

PUTIN, VLADIMIR – President of Russia, 1999–2008, 2012–15. Prime Minister of Russia, 2008–12.

SINGH, MANMOHAN – Prime Minister of India, 2004–14.

USHAKOV, YURI – Adviser to President Putin, 2008–15.

XIAOMING, LIU – Chinese Ambassador to the United Kingdom, 2010–15.

YANUKOVYCH, VIKTOR – President of Ukraine, 2010–14.

YI, WANG – Chinese Foreign Minister, 2013–15.

INTRODUCTION TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION

Cameron at 10: 2010–16
The Verdict

The decision to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union was the biggest gamble of David Cameron’s political career. Had the result tipped in his favour, he would have been able to capitalize on his second term, in which he was already developing a distinctive domestic agenda. But like Margaret Thatcher and John Major before him, Britain’s troubled relationship with Europe would leave his premiership in ruins. His downfall was on an even greater scale than theirs. He will forever be remembered as the prime minister who precipitated the country’s most momentous decision in over fifty years, with far-reaching and profound consequences.

How did this happen? None of Cameron’s predecessors had managed to hold the Conservative Party together over the issue of Europe since Britain joined the European Economic Community in 1973. On becoming leader he urged the party to ‘stop banging on’ about Europe, desperate to cast aside years of internecine conflict between Tory Europhiles and Eurosceptics. He came to office in May 2010 with little coherent plan for how to achieve this, beyond hoping that Europe must not overshadow his premiership. Yet within eighteen months, the pressure to commit to a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union was becoming overwhelming. By the summer of 2012, over one hundred Conservative MPs had added their names to a letter calling on Cameron to make a commitment, fearful that the rise of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) would destroy the party’s chances of winning the next election. He chose to assuage their concerns by promising a ‘new settlement’ with the EU following a renegotiation of Britain’s membership. The referendum pledge Cameron made in his Bloomberg speech in January 2013 ultimately led to his undoing. It gave the impression of a prime minister reacting to events rather than mastering them.

Cameron’s decision to forge a new deal on Europe and defy the doomsayers in his party has been dismissed by many as foolhardy political expediency. The Bloomberg speech, it is alleged, was an exercise in party management to neutralise the issue until after the 2015 general election. It certainly appeased a growing number of Brexiteers on the front and back benches. But this view dismisses Cameron’s genuine desire to tackle the recurring sore of Europe and his belief that the country would have to address the issue sooner rather than later. It is hard to argue that he had ducked the problem. His error, which would prove fatal, came in the belief that he could secure more than he could from Britain’s European partners, telling the Conservative Party conference in 2014 that he would make progress on free movement and would not take ‘no’ for an answer. Angela Merkel, he hoped, would help him to persuade other European leaders to give Britain stronger safeguards against the swelling influx of migrants attracted by Britain’s strong economy.

Cameron pressed European leaders to cut him a deal in February 2016, believing, with George Osborne, that protracting it would only handicap their cause. The circumstances could not have been less propitious. The EU was in no mood to give Britain anything more, given the migration crisis on Europe’s borders and continuing uncertainty over the eurozone. The package of measures to restrict welfare benefits, provide financial safeguards and a commitment to protect Britain from ‘ever closer union’ did not meet the public’s expectations that Cameron and his team had raised. ‘He was very defensive because he knew it was so hard to get, but most of us knew that even in his own head he was over-claiming,’ admits one. It was not enough to convince Boris Johnson or close ally and friend Michael Gove, whose decisions to join the Leave campaign would cost Cameron dearly.

By leading the charge for the Remain campaign rather than replicating Harold Wilson’s more removed role during the 1975 referendum – a lead Cameron was adamant he should take – he raised the stakes even further. ‘He could have played no further role in the campaign by playing the role of elder statesman,’ argues Graham Brady, chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee. ‘But he was determined to front the campaign and that immediately eroded his credibility.’ But not to have led from the front would have been a failure of leadership. He chose, however, to become highly partisan rather than maintain a more dignified distance, which lost him some dignity and authority. He thus exposed himself to accusations by his own ministers of lying and broken promises about key claims, including reducing immigration to the tens of thousands, and he did not stop direct and personal attacks on senior figures on the Leave side, principally Boris Johnson. When Cameron labelled Leave supporters as ‘Little Englanders’ and ‘quitters’, he managed to offend many grass-roots Conservatives across the country. When the Leave campaign relentlessly pushed the question of immigration, Cameron’s and Osborne’s warnings on the economic risks of leaving the EU lost their potency.

The failure of the Remain campaign and the reality of defeat will loom large in the nation’s mind for many years to come. But what are we to make of his record in office beyond the European question? We should not judge prime ministers as if they all served on a level playing field. Some come to power blessed with advantages, none more so in recent years than Tony Blair, who in 1997 inherited a strong economy, enjoyed a large majority and led a unified Labour Party. Cameron’s inheritance in May 2010 was one of the most challenging for fifty years, worse than the situation Wilson faced in 1974 or arguably even Thatcher in 1979. Yes, he had the good fortune to face Ed Miliband, then Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader – Miliband’s brother and leadership contender in 2010, David, would have posed a greater challenge – and to have no serious rivals around the Cabinet table to spark a leadership election. Johnson, the one figure with more popular appeal to Tory voters, was ruled out by not being in Parliament until 2015. Where Blair had, in Gordon Brown, a chancellor who undermined him, significantly damaging his effectiveness as premier, Cameron had a chancellor who enhanced his own authority and effectiveness during the coalition. Cameron was fortunate too to have William Hague affirming his leadership, especially earlier in his premiership, with all the authority and experience a former party leader carries. His decision to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats usefully shielded him from unpopular decisions, particularly over public spending cuts. By entering the coalition, the Liberal Democrats believed they were taking a brave decision – albeit one that would cost them dear at the polls.

But there the blessings end. Cameron’s difficulty in managing his party between 2010 and 2015 was exacerbated by his failure to win an overall majority in May 2010. He came to power at a time of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. His response was to say that the coalition was ‘governing in the national interest’ – a phrase which imbued his speeches and statements for most of his first twelve months in power. The constraints of the economy and coalition politics were never far from the surface. Like Konrad Adenauer, chancellor of West Germany (1949–63), Cameron displayed uncanny instincts for holding his party and coalition together, but did not win over hearts and minds.

Cameron came to power at a time of widespread anti-establishment feeling and disillusion across the nation. It ultimately contributed to his undoing by way of the EU referendum defeat, and contributed to British politics being in an unusually febrile and volatile state after 2010. The stellar rise of UKIP in 2013–14 threatened the most dangerous split on the right for generations. Cameron had the Conservative press on his back, particularly from 2011–13, partly in anger at his setting up the Leveson Inquiry. As with John Major, but unlike with Margaret Thatcher, he had few cheerleaders among the right-wing commentariat or Tory grandees. Most were unwilling or unable to give him credit for his strengths and achievements, or to credit his difficulties. The Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011, designed to bind the coalition together, denied him the opportunity to threaten an election at a moment of his choosing, depriving him of a critical tool in disciplining his party. He faced a turbulent House of Lords, an assertive judiciary, rampant Scottish nationalism, and EU laws that, despite his repeated efforts, constrained his ability to limit EU immigration.

Such difficulties explain some if not all of Cameron’s problems. His unforced error in presiding over a confused message in the 2010 general election proved to be crucial. The direction of the Conservative campaign was split, and the prospectus divided between the optimistic if inchoate ‘Big Society’ and the overdone pessimism of austerity on the economy. The election could have been won outright against a discredited prime minister and Labour Party, and a country disillusioned with thirteen years of Labour rule. Cameron was thus to a significant extent the author of some of his own problems during these five years. He was determined not to preside over the same divided campaign in the 2015 election. Vindication followed with the party achieving an overall majority, its first in twenty-three years. Cameron’s victory confounded the predictions of opinion pollsters and many commentators from both sides of the political spectrum. Critics said he only won because of last-minute fears of an SNP–Labour alliance, but research suggests economic arguments and Cameron’s qualities over Miliband were decisive. Victory shattered Miliband’s Labour Party as well as Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats. Both parties lost their leaders after the general election and immediately descended into disarray. The Conservatives, despite their slender majority, gained a political hegemony and confidence in the months that followed which they had not known since before Black Wednesday in 1992. It was to be short-lived.

Cameron’s critics have often pointed to his deficiencies as a long-term, strategic thinker. This criticism should not be overplayed or judged devoid of context. If Cameron lacked principles, how do we explain his standing by Plan A on the economy, gay marriage and the decision to spend 0.7% of GNP on international development? He expended considerable political capital in remaining fixed on each of these policies. His years in power were characterised by an uneasy mix of dogged adherence to such policies while displaying marked flexibility on others. He stuck by what he deemed the most important factors: coalition survival and economic recovery. Circumstances openly militated against long-termism, and flexibility is a virtue as well as a vice; often for Cameron it was additionally a necessity.

The economic recovery of 2010–15 defined the character of the coalition and Cameron’s premiership. Economists will argue whether the deficit should have been cut more quickly, or slowly, and whether it was the global economy rather than government policy which was more responsible for the restoration of economic fortunes. Osborne’s failure to eliminate the structural deficit during the life of the parliament, a commitment abandoned after only two years, brought much criticism at the time, though government spending as a proportion of GDP fell from some 45% to 40%, a not insignificant reduction in such a short period. In only five years in power, Cameron and Osborne achieved a reduction in public spending as a proportion of GDP approximately equal to the reduction achieved by Thatcher during the whole of her eleven years in power. By 2014 Britain had the fastest growth rate in the G7, with a strong record on job creation, and falling unemployment (2.2 million more were in work than in 2010), helped by low inflation and low interest rates.

Cameron and Osborne stuck by Plan A, albeit with modification, in the face of severe pressure, particularly during 2011–13. Public spending cuts were painfully felt, particularly by the young, who saw their benefits decline while pensioners were protected. Recovery was hampered by the continuing eurozone crisis and slowdown in global economic growth, but was helped by the fall in oil prices. Productivity remained sluggish by international standards, and real wages struggled to recover to pre-recession levels. The rise in living standards was skewed towards the south-east, which only began to be addressed by Osborne in his Northern Powerhouse strategy from mid-2014. Like Thatcher, Cameron invested great energy for a prime minister in his role as ‘chief salesman’ for the UK abroad, galvanising British companies to export, though export growth remained disappointing. He and Osborne worked hard to inject a more entrepreneurial spirit into British industry, symbolised by Tech-City in East London.

Osborne’s contribution to this government and Cameron’s premiership was seminal. Like Cameron, he grew in stature over the years, recovering strongly from his personal errors of judgement early on, notably the failure to win the 2010 general election outright, and the ‘omnishambles’ Budget of 2012. He was responsible for much of the strategic and tactical thinking of the government, though Cameron overruled Osborne when he thought he was being too tactical or his judgement was wrong. The most instinctive political operator in Cameron’s team, Osborne also possessed the quickest and subtlest mind. Cameron was always the more senior, as when he prevented Osborne from reducing the top rate of income tax to 40% in the 2012 Budget, deterring him from laying into the Lib Dems and gaining tactical advantage but at the expense of long-term strategy. He gave him cover and succour when deeply wounded for much of 2012. They spoke to each other almost every morning and evening over the five years, enjoying the most successful and harmonious senior political relationship of the last one hundred years. The secret of the success was the way they complemented each other: to an uncanny degree they thought as one. The chancellor/PM relationship, when it goes wrong, does so for two reasons: significant differences over policy, and ambition by the junior to replace the senior. In this case neither applied. Osborne knew when to bite his tongue and defer to Cameron, and, uniquely in modern British politics, neither the PM’s nor the chancellor’s teams ever briefed against the other. There were differences of emphasis, certainly: Osborne would have preferred to have been more aggressively liberal on social issues, more of a neocon on foreign policy, tougher on colleagues and backbenchers, and more of a tax and economic reformer, though it was the economic situation rather than Cameron that was the principal restraint. Cameron, the older figure by five years, was always more of a shire Tory, while Osborne was more of an urban liberal.

School reform took prominence among domestic achievements, the work of one minister above all: Michael Gove. He ferociously drove through a series of controversial reforms to make exams more rigorous, to improve the quality of teaching and to give schools more autonomy, establishing an altogether new breed of ‘free schools’, while greatly accelerating Labour’s programme of academies. When Gove was moved in July 2014, his successor Nicky Morgan was given clear instructions to continue his crusade, albeit with a more conciliatory hue. The success of the education reform agenda is far from established, however, with many academies struggling to meet expectations set for them, while the mark on social mobility will not be seen for many years.

Welfare was another domestic achievement, with Iain Duncan Smith introducing significant if contentious reforms to the benefits system to ensure that welfare was targeted at the most deserving, and those out of work were encouraged back into employment. He stuck doggedly to his flagship policy, Universal Credit, designed to unify and simplify previous systems, and against the odds, remained in office throughout the parliament and into the next before his sudden resignation in March 2016. As with education, it is too early to tell whether the ambitious welfare changes will prove an enduring success. Health policy was more uneven still, with two very different phases: a difficult two years when Andrew Lansley tried to introduce some important if flawed reforms to the NHS, and a second when Jeremy Hunt drove through amended reforms and pacified the NHS so successfully that it was not the predominant issue at the 2015 election, despite Labour making it their priority. Health reforms remained highly controversial after 2015, the subject of avid continuing debate.

At the Home Office, the most fraught department of state, Theresa May ran a tighter ship than many of her predecessors, battled to control non-EU immigration, and oversaw a reduction in crime despite severe cuts in the Home Office budget. Domestic successes came in several other areas, including public sector reform, but not in others, with plans for elected mayors in major British cities being largely rejected in local referenda. The record on new housing, the environment and reducing poverty, even with Lib Dem interventions, remained weak. In his second term, Cameron determined to craft a radical policy agenda that would place him as a great social reforming prime minister. It was not to be.

Northern Ireland enjoyed its most peaceful five-year period since the 1960s, due in part to Cameron’s June 2010 acknowledgement of the culpability of the British army on Bloody Sunday in 1972. In mainland Britain, despite cuts, austerity and high unemployment, civil unrest and trade union disruption were largely avoided, with the notable exceptions of the protests over student tuition fees in November and December 2010, and the riots in London and other cities in the summer of 2011. Fusilier Lee Rigby in May 2013 was the only British citizen to be murdered due to Islamist terrorism on British soil during Cameron’s years, despite a considerable rise in threat levels. Several plots, including some of 7/7 proportions, were foiled, through the skill of the intelligence services and police, together with a degree of good fortune. The successful London Olympics proceeded without incident in the summer of 2012. Cameron spoke out regularly about combating terrorism, and would have wanted to go further to fight the threat both in the UK and abroad. But throughout 2010–16, his close personal alertness to the threat of terrorism on the streets of Britain, and his determination to reduce the risk, was clear.

Cameron’s record as a leader abroad, however, is more mixed. He seized the initiative on insisting that British troops withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, and worked hard to try to ensure that the handover to the Afghans was smooth. Credit is due for the timely and orderly way he brought Britain’s involvement in this long-running war to an end. Another lesson he learnt from Blair’s government was to avoid any hint of the ‘sofa government’ that marked the Iraq War in 2003. He thus set up the National Security Council soon after the general election in 2010, which met weekly and which he himself chaired. The organisation’s first great test came over British intervention in Libya. This was driven by Cameron personally, backed by all members of the NSC and by the Cabinet, and additionally supported by a United Nations resolution. The conclusion of the war and the downfall of Gaddafi in the autumn of 2011 brought Cameron short-term acclaim. He hoped along with many others in the heady initial days of the Arab Spring for a new dawn of democracy across the Arab world. This optimism faltered during the following years as Libya descended into violence and tribal infighting, and Syria was torn apart by civil war. His attempt to involve Britain militarily against Syria’s President Assad in August 2013, after Assad used chemical weapons against his own people, produced Cameron’s biggest first-term foreign policy reversal, when he was defeated in the House of Commons. This defeat, and the deteriorating position in Libya, made him less inclined to assert his will in the final year and a half leading up to the general election in 2015. Humanitarian instincts drove him to intervene in Libya in 2011, and to try to intervene in Syria in 2013. He was not the first British leader whose aspirations in the region were to be thwarted by forces far more powerful than anything they could control. He can be criticised certainly for acting; equally, inaction would have resulted in opprobrium, and other risks. His foreign policy was marked by a strong ethical underpinning.

The recovery of the British economy and Cameron’s strong relationship with President Obama were significant in countering the widespread narrative about a loss of British influence on the world stage. Hard though it may be to discern a consistent shape to Cameron’s foreign policy, he succeeded in keeping Britain safe, improving the relationship with the US after the Brown years and in promoting the British brand abroad.

But these years were not a time of heroes. Other national leaders in the West struggled to assert themselves on the world stage. Obama, François Hollande, and leaders across the EU all experienced difficulties given the economic climate, the rise of China and India, Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, and militant Islam’s success in Syria and Iraq. Only Merkel in Germany emerged with credit from these problematic years, though continuing difficulties facing the eurozone and in finding a solution to migration dented her authority. Ultimately, the failure of Cameron’s European gamble will cast a long shadow over his foreign policy record.

David Cameron’s calm stewardship of the coalition government of 2010–15, and his piloting Britain through profound economic weakness back to economic vitality, will be his greatest achievements. His record during these years compares favourably to the first terms of Thatcher and Blair. By defying the odds in winning the 2015 general election, he led his party back into office with an overall majority, a signal personal achievement. Ultimately, he could not prevail against the juggernaut of Euroscepticism in his own party, the press and country. The Conservative Party has not been as divided on any issue since the 1840s, while the nation has not been so divided since the Suez Crisis in 1956. His strengths were his high intelligence, work rate, calm under pressure, integrity and courage. His failings – impetuosity, naivety at times and lack of strategic clarity – were those of a young man. The youngest prime minister for one hundred and ninety-eight years, he was arguably at the peak of his powers when he fell on his sword.

The first six months of his second term showed considerable promise in carving out a distinctly personal agenda focusing on what became known as the ‘life chances’ agenda. The commitment to One Nation Toryism that he made on the steps of Number 10 after his 2015 election victory now lies unfulfilled. To his closest supporters and aides, Cameron’s inability to execute this agenda, which had only begun to crystallise, is one of the tragic consequences of the European referendum. No one knows how the remaining two or three years of his second term would have panned out had the country voted differently. We will never know what David Cameron might have achieved had he not departed in 2016. History tends to condemn prime ministers for one major mistake – Lord North for the loss of the American colonies, Anthony Eden for Suez and Blair for Iraq. It would be cruel and wrong for Cameron’s premiership to be so castigated. He achieved much during his six years. We believe he had little or no choice but to call a Referendum and that he could not have done more to achieve the terms he did in February 2016. But he should have delayed calling the Referendum till better terms were given, difficult though it would have been, and fought a more positive, authoritative campaign.

Anthony Seldon and Peter Snowdon

July 2016

ONE

First Night in Downing Street

11 May 2010

‘Snap out of it: we have a job to do,’ barks Jeremy Heywood, Number 10’s permanent secretary, the senior official, the top dog. It is 7.55 p.m. on Tuesday 11 May. Outside, dusk is descending. Staff are still dazed from Gordon and Sarah Brown’s deeply emotional departure moments before.1 They stand around the departed PM’s open-plan office torpid, drained. Many have tears in their eyes. ‘The prime minister will be here in half an hour.’ Heywood’s piercing voice urges them back into action.2 Tom Fletcher, Brown’s (and now about to be David Cameron’s) foreign policy adviser, changes his red and yellow striped tie to one with blue and yellow stripes. Ever the diplomat, he wants to shift emotional and political gear before his new boss arrives in the building.3 Dirty mugs and plates are spirited away, out-of-date papers removed, computer screens cleared. Here is the British Civil Service at action stations. The king is dead. Long live the king.

Just after 8 p.m., Brown delivers his farewell statement to the media circus outside Number 10. His former staff are too busy inside to notice. Three hundred yards down Whitehall, a similar riot of activity is taking place in the Leader of the Opposition’s office in Parliament in the Norman Shaw building. Ed Llewellyn, Cameron’s chief of staff, receives a call from the American ambassador: ‘It looks like you guys are going across the road. The president wants to be the first to talk to your man when he gets there.’4 Coalition conversations with Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg are still ongoing, though they are close to reaching an agreement. Cameron’s wife, Samantha, is caught off guard by the fast-flowing action. She is called in the early evening by Kate Fall, Cameron’s gatekeeper and senior female aide, at the family’s London home in Notting Hill: ‘You’re going to have to come down soon. David is about to form a government.’ ‘I don’t have to get dressed up, do I? I’m at home with the kids.’ ‘Er, not yet,’ Fall replies. Minutes later, Fall calls her back. ‘Get ready. You’ll need to put your dress on quickly.’ With moments to spare, Samantha arrives at Cameron’s office.

David and Samantha are bundled into a car to Buckingham Palace for the Queen to invite him to become prime minister, Britain’s youngest for nearly 200 years. Their hands touch in the back of the car. Their lives are about to change forever, but the short journey gives them final moments of peace. The car sweeps through the open gates. Cameron, still calm, ascends the wide stairs to where Her Majesty awaits him. He listens with barely concealed pride as she invites him to form a government. Audience over, and now in the official prime minister’s car under police escort, they are driven the half-mile to Downing Street.

His team have been advised by Heywood to enter Number 10 by the Cabinet Office entrance on Whitehall. Most of them have never been inside Downing Street. They walk down its long central corridor from the Cabinet Room to the front lobby in awe, before heading outside. Standing in front of the door to Number 11, they observe the lectern that Brown has just spoken from still standing on solitary duty outside the black front door of Number 10. Liz Sugg, who organises Cameron’s trips, wants to tell him not to use the lectern and where to stand for his first speech as prime minister. She knows he is on his way back from the Palace, but is unable to get through. ‘So this is what it’s going to be like now he is prime minister,’ she thinks to herself, ‘he won’t be able to take my calls.’ Then her mobile rings. It is Cameron. ‘Sorry, I was ringing my mum,’ he tells her as if they are old friends sharing a latte at Starbucks. She tells him – she is nothing if not emphatic – exactly where his car is to stop, and where he is to speak.5

At 8.42 p.m., the prime minister’s small convoy drives into Downing Street. He steps out beside a visibly pregnant Samantha, and delivers the statement he has put the finishing touches to just moments before:

Her Majesty the Queen has asked me to form a new government and I have accepted … our country has a hung Parliament where no party has an overall majority and we have some deep and pressing problems – a huge deficit, deep social problems, and a political system in need of reform. For those reasons I aim to form a proper and full coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats … I believe that is the best way to get the strong government that we need … This is going to be hard and difficult work.

Huddled on the pavement in front of Number 11, his aides watch anxiously. ‘I’ll never forget that evening. The sun was setting. It was twilight, adding to the magic. While he was speaking, crowds in Whitehall were shouting. Helicopters were hovering overhead. It all seemed surreal,’ recalls Cameron’s political private secretary, Laurence Mann.6 The new prime minister and Samantha walk to the front door. An official removes the microphone. Cameron poses with Samantha on the front steps, hugging her awkwardly. As the door is opened, he gives a final wave. A few chants float in from the streets: ‘Gordon out!’ vies with ‘Tories out!’ before the sounds of the outside world fall away with the closing of the door. He has arrived.

Staff line up along the long corridor from front door to Cabinet Room, clapping him and Samantha. His small team follow on behind. One looks down at his shoes in embarrassment, overcome by the occasion. Another notices the smell of newly cleaned carpet. Cameron turns round at the end of the line and says a few words to his new staff who less than forty-five minutes before had been tearfully clapping out Gordon and Sarah. Samantha is peeled away. Kate Fall goes with her, dividing her time that first evening between looking after both of the principals.

Inside the Cabinet Room, Cameron greets Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell and Heywood. Britain’s two top officials brief him about his most pressing tasks – some, such as procedures in the event of nuclear threats, are held over to the following morning.7 His staff are shown to their offices. They are amazed to be presented with appointment cards showing the PM’s diary neatly typed up. ‘I realised then that this is the Rolls-Royce state in action,’ recalls one.8 Cameron is escorted through the double doors at the end of the Cabinet Room into his office, which Blair used and called his ‘den’, at almost the furthest possible point in the Downing Street warren from Brown’s office in Number 12. He looks around, disconcerted to see doors on each side, the other leading on to the long room where his aides and officials will work. He wonders about having people constantly entering his office from both sides.9 Number 10 has no ideal room for a prime minister; nothing like the Oval Office. Unlike the White House, it was not purpose-built, but evolved from history. Discussions have taken place in the preceding weeks whether, should Cameron win, he would occupy the space Brown had chosen in Number 12, move upstairs in Number 10 to the office Thatcher had worked from, or use the den.10 Cameron briefly flirts with the idea of using the White Room, one of the state rooms on the first floor, with views across to St James’s Park and Horse Guards Parade. Heywood, Fall and Llewellyn later persuade him to use the den, for practical and security reasons.

Discussions had taken place also about Heywood in the preceding weeks. Should he stay? He had been very close – perhaps too close – to Labour’s operation under both Blair and Brown. Was he a Labour man? He had been intimately involved in all Labour’s decisions for the previous few years, bar a period (2004–7) when he left the Civil Service for the private sector. Some of these decisions under Labour Cameron and George Osborne thought were disastrous. They knew Heywood believed passionately in capitalism, but was he enough of a free marketeer, enough of an enthusiast for competition and the small-enterprise initiatives they wanted to see? But it was decided before the election that Heywood, one of the most omni-competent officials since 1945, was too important to lose.

Present in the den at nine o’clock that first evening are Llewellyn, Cameron’s chief of staff since 2005; Osborne, his master strategist; Steve Hilton, his exuberant and intellectually brilliant thinker; and Andy Coulson, his worldly-wise head of communications. It had been felt by some observers that tension between them had seriously hampered Cameron’s election campaign, but tonight their feelings are temporarily put aside.

The den clears suddenly at 9.10 p.m. when Fletcher enters to announce the Obama call is coming through. ‘Here I am, just us in the room, less than half an hour after he’s entered the building, with the American president waiting to speak,’ Fletcher thinks to himself.11 The two national leaders barely know each other. The White House are aware they mucked up the relationship in the president’s first year by being brusque to Brown, who they found needy. Obama thus wants to get off on the right foot with the new prime minister. ‘Congratulations,’ he booms down the secure line. Cameron has not used the apparatus before and has just been briefed that officials will be listening to his every word, taking careful notes. The prime minister is businesslike, savouring the moment when he says ‘I’m speaking from Number 10’ for the first time. When he does so, he winks to his aide. ‘Come over and see me in the White House,’ Obama says. This is a big deal, and very welcome news to the team. They are delighted to hear him utter the totemic words ‘special relationship’ between the US and Britain. The call is short and to the point. As the line goes dead, Coulson is agreeing the lines to brief about it with Robert Gibbs, White House press secretary. Coulson is anxious to get it right, and not hype it beyond what the White House wants. Cameron’s team are now playing in an altogether new league.

Llewellyn and Fletcher decide which foreign leader talks to the PM and when. Next on his list is the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. ‘Your job is to defend UK interests and my job is to defend German interests,’ she tells a dazed Cameron, who has just been given a briefing on hedge funds, an issue between both nations at the time. Her tone is polite but formal. The chancellor is still cross that he withdrew the Conservative Party from the European People’s Party (EPP) in May 2009. Their call gives no hint of the warmth that will develop after the first few months, though she invites him nevertheless to visit her in Germany. From France, President Sarkozy – always anxious for the limelight – is pressing to speak to Cameron. He will have to wait. The team debate whether Cameron should visit Germany or France first. Stephen Harper, Canadian prime minister, gets in with a quick call: ‘Take it all in and pace yourself,’ he tells the new prime minister.12 This sounds better, Cameron thinks, sensing here is someone with whom he will be able to relate.

He is enjoying his new toy. He looks up from the telephone to see aides anxiously pointing to their watches. He is running late for his address to the Conservative Party. He is driven the short distance to the House of Commons accompanied by the special protection officers who have been at his side in the weeks leading up to the election and will now accompany him for the remainder of his premiership, and indeed the rest of his life. His new escorts follow him up the stairs to the Grand Committee Room where he is greeted with wild cheering from Conservative parliamentarians. The chief whip, Patrick McLoughlin, calls for silence with the words ‘Colleagues, the prime minister.’ ‘I can honestly say that I was the first person to call him prime minister in public,’ McLoughlin recalls.13

It is 10.06 p.m. The atmosphere in the cramped room is near hysterical with excitement. After the long election campaign, MPs have endured a further five days of uncertainty until it becomes clear only a couple of hours before that Cameron will be prime minister. Aides recall ‘a ferocious cheer, banging of desks and wild excitement’ after he makes a short speech about events during the historic day.14 It will not always be this cordial when Cameron meets his party’s MPs. Farewells over, the team repair to Cameron’s former office in the Norman Shaw building. Osborne’s team join them and together they tuck in to pizzas in celebration.15

Cameron relaxes in his old haunt among old friends, but becomes aware that Llewellyn and Fall are telling him he needs to go back to Downing Street. Once there, Cameron returns to the phone, absorbing the quickest of briefings between calls. Sarkozy will be his ‘best friend and biggest rival’. ‘I need you to tell me when I get it wrong,’ Cameron says to his officials. A respectful conversation with Manmohan Singh of India follows while calls stack up with the Japanese and Chinese. Meanwhile, calls are still being put through from Number 10 to Gordon Brown, who is being driven to the airport to head north to Scotland. Obama and other leaders are keen to bid farewell to the former prime minister. At one point, Brown rings Number 10 to thank Fletcher for his assistance with the calls. It is a surreal moment. Foreign leaders would have been surprised if they knew that their words to Brown a few hours before – ‘It’s a pity you are having to leave because you were so good’ – were being noted down by the same official who heard them say to Cameron, ‘We always wanted you to win. It’ll be great and we can now reset this relationship in a much better way.’

William Hague is present at Number 10 for much of the evening. Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, wants to congratulate him, but officials decide that the call should wait until the following morning as he is yet to be formally appointed Foreign Secretary. Hague, ever philosophical, accepts their advice with a smile, and walks through to Brown’s old office in Number 12 where more pizza is being shared by Cameron’s small team. With amazingly few exceptions, here are the team who will carry him through the entire five years. They are his four closest Cabinet colleagues: Osborne, Hague, fixer extraordinaire Oliver Letwin and close friend and colleague Michael Gove. His aides are Llewellyn, Hilton, Coulson, Fall, Oliver Dowden (a senior party aide), and Laurence Mann. Present too are the officials, Heywood, Fletcher, James Bowler, the PM’s principal private secretary, and Rupert Harrison, Osborne’s heavyweight economist and multi-talented chief of staff who is still only in his early thirties.

The new incumbents notice the pen marks on the table and ask officials, ‘Is this where Gordon stubbed his pen? Is this where he threw his phone?’ Their questions are not driven by point-scoring, but more by awed curiosity: ‘There was no gloating,’ notes one. Officials’ first impressions of Cameron that night are that he is more level and composed than they had expected. Already they detect a calmer and more orderly tone to Downing Street. Cameron’s team start drifting away from 1 a.m. The adventure for which they have worked tirelessly since Cameron became party leader four and a half years before is about to begin. Llewellyn leaves at 3 a.m. ‘It was the most exciting night of my life,’ he recalls.16

TWO

Origin of ‘Plan A’

September 2008–February 2010

The most important decision to be taken by the Cameron government of 2010–15 was made before it even got into power. The decision had three distinct phases: the autumn of 2008, June 2009 and the autumn of 2009. Together they formed the building blocks of what became known as ‘Plan A’: placing deficit reduction at the very heart of their economic strategy. It provided the coalition government with its core narrative and principal claim to success, and it gave a coherent platform for the Lib Dems to sign up to and their rationale for remaining in the government. But these very decisions in 2008 and 2009 were also to cleave Cameron’s team right down the middle, to contribute to him losing his stride in the 2010 general election, and almost certainly cost the Conservatives an overall majority. It is important thus to examine this history.

The first plank in the Plan A platform was put in place in the autumn of 2008. On 15 September, Lehman Brothers, the 158-year-old investment bank and the fourth largest in the United States, filed for bankruptcy. The shockwaves triggered the global financial crisis. Jon Cunliffe, a senior official in the Cabinet Office, sent an email around Whitehall: ‘If we don’t do something now the whole system is going to go down. We have to act.’1 That week, the survival of British banks RBS and HBOS was at stake. As Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Labour Party gathered in Manchester for their annual conference on 20 September, Brown was brought a note to say that Goldman Sachs, the bluest of blue-chip banks, might be on the verge of going under. The British economy was in dire danger. Cameron and Osborne regarded Brown as the principal architect of the economic position the country found itself in. But it was the PM who held the initiative, and was about to absolve himself of any blame.

Brown took the unusual step of addressing the Labour conference on the opening Saturday, speaking without notes and with gravitas about the profound problems in the global economy. It underpinned his own position in the party, as well as in the country, as the leader uniquely placed to handle the grave predicament. His main speech on Tuesday 23 September was preceded by a masterstroke. The conference expected him on the podium, but his wife Sarah walked on to the stage. ‘Every day I see him motivated to work for the best interests of the people around the country,’ she said, concluding her two minutes by introducing ‘my husband, the leader of your party, your prime minister, Gordon Brown’. It was a coup.2 He remained on a high throughout the speech. His most effective line was that it was ‘no time for a novice’, referring not only to Cameron, but also to Brown’s would-be challenger, David Miliband. The most powerful of his three conference speeches as prime minister, it further underwrote his credentials as saviour of the nation. Brown left Britain on 24 September on a much-hyped trip to New York and Washington, leaving Cameron and Osborne behind at their conference desperately trying to find a way to make an impact. As PM, he had found a role.

Unlike Brown, whom they disliked, and the chancellor, Alistair Darling, whom they quite admired, the two leading Conservatives had neither the power of office, nor the boon of the advice and information from the Treasury, Cabinet Office and Bank of England. They were very young and inexperienced, as they were painfully aware. Cameron had more understanding of economics than Osborne. He had studied it as part of his politics, philosophy and economics (PPE) degree at Oxford, and had worked in the Treasury as a special adviser in the early 1990s.3 Osborne, who studied modern history at Oxford, had been appointed shadow chancellor in May 2005 at the age of thirty-three. Though he served briefly as shadow chief secretary, Osborne had much to learn in his new brief. ‘As shadow chancellor, my first and biggest political task was to establish economic credibility,’ he later said. ‘I did that by being a small “c” conservative and saying that I wouldn’t promise unfunded tax cuts.’4 Like Cameron, he looked to the example of Margaret Thatcher rather than her 1980s contemporary, President Ronald Reagan, ‘who ran big deficits to pay for big tax cuts’.5 The totemic event for Cameron, as for Osborne, was Geoffrey Howe’s Budget of 1981, which raised taxes despite Britain being in a recession.6

After Cameron was elected party leader in December 2005, seven months after Osborne’s promotion to shadow chancellor, they rapidly became the closest of allies: the closest indeed that British politics has seen at the top since the Second World War. They both yearned for credibility at a time when their youth and inexperience provoked so many questions. So in September 2007 they took a decision deliberately to imitate what New Labour had done before the 1997 general election, when Blair said he would match Tory spending plans, and promised to maintain Labour’s spending plans if elected. Osborne’s predecessor as shadow chancellor, Oliver Letwin, said Osborne ‘took the decision early on deliberately to avoid an argument with Labour on public spending, in an attempt to neutralise the issue’.7

When the financial crisis hit, Osborne and Cameron were wrong-footed. They thought they were dealing with a failure of the banking system rather than a more general economic crisis. Osborne criticised Brown’s government for creating ‘an economy built on debt’, saying of the public finances that ‘the cupboard is bare’, but he deliberately eschewed using the word ‘austerity’, because of the negative connotations of the term for the Conservatives.8 He released a document called Reconstruction: Plan for a Strong Economy, which outlined his thinking, although it was soon to be overtaken by events.9 The Conservatives held their annual 2008 conference in Birmingham. On 1 October, Cameron announced he would work with the Labour government ‘in the short term to ensure financial stability’. During the conference, Osborne travelled to London with his aide Rupert Harrison to meet Alistair Darling and Financial Services Authority chief executive Hector Sants. He also spoke by phone to governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King and bank leaders in the City, realising he faced a fast-moving situation where only the authorities really knew what was happening.10 Brown and the Labour government held the initiative and knew it. On 8 October, they announced a £500 billion bank bailout package to restore market confidence. Just days before, the Bush administration in the US had announced the Troubled Asset Relief Programme (TARP), allowing for $400 billion to purchase troubled assets.11

Yet Cameron’s and Osborne’s relationship was cemented during these difficult weeks. A close team had begun coalescing around Osborne, consisting first and foremost of Rupert Harrison. Harrison began working for the shadow chancellor in 2006, recruited from the respected independent think-tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies. He is an intriguing character. Eight years younger than the chancellor, he is the possessor of a powerful and capacious mind. After having been head boy at Eton, at Oxford he switched from Physics to PPE, excelling at both. He went on to complete a PhD in economics at University College London. Harrison’s influence on policy grew steadily in Opposition and his role would be pivotal when he became Osborne’s chief of staff in 2010. He dislikes the comparison, but his relationship with Osborne is uncannily similar to Ed Balls’s with Brown. Balls and Harrison have the much profounder technical understanding of economics and both are more intellectually assured than their masters. They are trained economists and highly effective operators in the Treasury and Whitehall at large. Both spend much time talking to Treasury officials before and after their chancellor has expressed his opinion, and both are skilled drafters of their speeches. They liberate and empower their bosses. There are differences. Harrison is a silky courtroom barrister where Balls is a backstreet fighter. Balls dominated the Treasury because of Brown’s dysfunctionality; under Brown, it was a cliquey and conspiratorial place. The Treasury under Osborne is more open, collegiate and empirical. Osborne, unlike Brown, is happy to be challenged in front of officials, and Harrison for one does so regularly. Osborne, like Brown, is an historian, but unlike him, never claims to be an economist. Balls and Harrison are the principal éminences grises of the Labour and coalition governments respectively. Brown had tried hard to make Balls chancellor in June 2009, while Osborne would come to rely equally heavily on Harrison at the Treasury.12

Matthew Hancock was another key member of Osborne’s team, serving as his chief of staff until 2010. A former Bank of England economist, he joined shortly after Osborne’s appointment as shadow chancellor: ‘I can do the politics, I want someone to do the economics,’ Osborne told the young aide.13 They were joined in April 2006 by Rohan Silva, a Manchester and London School of Economics-educated former Treasury policy analyst, and in 2009 by Paul Kirby, a partner at KPMG. This high-powered team also included Eleanor Shawcross, another economist. Letwin remained a constant source of counsel to them all, self-effacing and intellectually brilliant. A group of former Conservative chancellors – Geoffrey Howe, Nigel Lawson, Norman Lamont and Kenneth Clarke – were only too happy to provide discreet ballast and experience to the young team. They were to prove notably important in the decision Cameron announced on 18 November 2008, to ‘decouple’ the Conservatives from their decision fourteen months earlier to match Labour’s spending plans, which Brown was using, Keynesian-style, to drive the country out of recession. ‘Matching Labour’s plans seemed a very smart move at the time,’ admitted an Osborne aide, ‘but by late 2008 they were anything but sensible.’ Letwin felt strongly: ‘For Labour to be going on a spending spree in response to the downturn, deploying fiscal not monetary tools, was a basic strategic error. I felt deeply it was a terrible decision for Labour.’14

Six days later, on Monday 24 November, Labour delivered its Pre-Budget Report (PBR), as the Autumn Statement was then known. The top rate of income tax for those earning over £150,000 was raised from 40% to 45%, ditching Labour’s manifesto pledge not to do so. A temporary cut in VAT from 17.5% to 15% was to come into effect on 1 December, in time for Christmas shopping, to stimulate the economy. This was to form the centrepiece of a £20 billion fiscal stimulus package to last for thirteen months. Bigger shocks followed. Darling announced that the £43 billion borrowing requirement forecast in his March 2008 Budget had been revised upwards, to £118 billion. He said the Budget would not be brought back into balance until 2015, that the economic situation was even worse than had been feared, and that public sector debt would rise from 41% to 57% of GDP by 2013/14. These figures did not even take into account the bank bailouts. To Osborne, Darling’s statement was the opportunity to regain the initiative. ‘I knew we were right to focus on the rapidly rising deficit. He just read out these numbers and everyone was completely stunned. That’s when we felt we were on the front foot and picked the right issue.’15 He decided to oppose the stimulus and made a series of increasingly strong statements in late 2008 and early 2009 damning Labour for its response to the recession. By Christmas 2008, confidence in the Conservative camp was rising as it became clear that Labour’s package was not giving the British economy the stimulus that it needed. Cameron and Osborne had now committed themselves against spending their way out of recession. They had yet to say that spending had to be cut. This was to come.

The second plank of Plan A was put in place in the spring and early summer of 2009. Cameron was planning to give a speech at the Conservative Spring Forum a few days after Darling’s Budget on 22 April. The speech, on spending plans, had already been written. But he was so incensed by what Darling said, he came back up to his office ‘extremely angry, thrashing around the place and kicking the buckets. He suddenly realised how everything was going to be fucked up because of the figures. I’d never seen him so angry at the way that Labour had mucked up the spending,’ an aide recalls. He sat down to work almost immediately rewriting his forum speech. ‘He’s rarely happy talking about economics,’ says the aide. But on this occasion he produced a draft which he regarded as really important. In his words can be traced key parts of what was becoming Plan A.

Osborne and Cameron had yet to announce if they were prepared to make cuts if they won the general election, because they were fully aware of the damage it could do to the Tories if they became known as the party of cuts. But for much of the first half of 2009, they goaded and taunted Brown and Darling into saying whether Labour would introduce cuts (known as the ‘c’ word). In his April Budget, Darling announced that income tax for top earners would rise again to 50%, and that borrowing would rise to £175 billion in the next two years.16 But on cuts, not a word.

On 10 June, shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley went on Radio 4’s Today programme and admitted that, if the Conservatives were elected, 10% cuts might be necessary to all departments except Health, International Development, and Education. Fatally, he omitted to mention that the Conservatives would just be matching what a leak suggested Labour would itself be doing.

‘That’s it! We can beat them on this,’ a jubilant Brown yelled out to his team in Downing Street when he heard what Lansley had uttered. At last he thought he’d found a clear Labour agenda for the future, a ‘eureka’ moment. Brown thundered across the despatch box at PMQs later that day: ‘This is the day when [the Conservatives] showed that the choice is between investment under Labour and massive cuts under the Conservative Party.’ Brown claimed that ‘wide, deep and immediate’ Tory cuts of 10% would be introduced ‘in order to fund a £200,000 tax cut for the 3,000 richest families’, a reference to the inheritance-tax reform Osborne had unveiled to wide acclaim at the Conservative annual conference in 2007.17 Brown’s team were deeply torn about the honesty of this claim, as well as the gulf opening up with his increasingly disillusioned chancellor, whom the Conservatives thought Brown had appointed as a mouthpiece, only to discover he had appointed a heavyweight with a mind of his own.18 His discovery further fuelled Brown’s desire to replace the independent-thinking Darling with his right-hand man and protégé, Ed Balls.

Cameron and Osborne went into a tight enclave to debate how to respond to Brown’s latest attack. The outlet they selected was an article in The Times under Osborne’s name, to appear on 15 June. In the first draft, Harrison had avoided using the word ‘cuts’, but Osborne insisted the dreaded ‘c’ word must be mentioned, rewriting the piece himself.19 Rather than avoiding the language of ‘austerity’, as Tories had in the past, Osborne wanted to come out into the open and say the plan really was for ‘cuts’. ‘We have fought shy of using the “c” word – cuts,’ he wrote. ‘We’ve all been tip-toeing around one of those discredited Gordon Brown dividing lines for too long. The real dividing line is not “cuts vs investment”, but “honesty vs dishonesty”.’ The reference to honesty was a calculated tactic to undermine Brown, whose integrity was being called into question, and by implication Labour’s.20 ‘We should have the confidence to tell the public the truth that Britain faces a debt crisis; that existing plans show that real spending will have to be cut, whoever is elected,’ wrote Osborne in The Times.21 In September, a leak from the Treasury suggested that a future Labour government would itself make spending cuts of 10%.

Plan A’s third and final plank was put into place in the autumn of 2009 with the announcement where the cuts might actually fall. For several weeks, working in the shadow chancellor’s Parliament offices, Harrison, Hancock, Kirby and Philip Hammond (the shadow chief secretary) had been reviewing the spending options for a future Conservative government and where any cuts could take place. Their thinking was fed through to Osborne and Letwin, and then up to Cameron himself. The media, sensing they had both main parties on the run, brought immense pressure to bear on them during the summer and early autumn to be specific about cuts. Brown admitted at the TUC annual conference on 15 September that there might have to be some cuts, but failed to mention them in his party conference speech two weeks later, with the gulf between the realism of his chancellor and the obduracy of the prime minister becoming more and more apparent. Darling had become very much in tune with his officials at the Treasury. For the ten years 1997–2007, Brown had ruled the roost with these same officials, and he was furious.

Osborne was determined to craft an economic message to the 2009 party conference in the autumn that would stand up to any challenges, and show that he was serious about taking the necessary risks. The public, as well as the media, had to be shown that he meant business. The Conservatives enjoyed a strong poll lead in the summer of 2009, and he believed that lead would be challenged all the way through to the general election in 2010 unless he set out his stall very firmly. Nick Robinson, the BBC’s wily political editor, got under his skin more than anyone, needling him to be precise about the Conservative plans.

Final decisions on the conference speech were taken only in September, and Osborne’s voice proved decisive. His team came up with a package of cuts aimed to save £23 billion over the life of the next parliament. The key elements were public sector pay to be frozen, the state pension age to rise, and the cost of Whitehall to be cut by a third over the life of the parliament.22 To ensure the proposals were seen to be fair, Osborne memorably later said ‘we could not even think of abolishing the 50p rate on the rich while at the same time we are asking many of our public sector workers to accept a pay freeze to protect their jobs’.23 Cameron and Osborne had adopted a high-risk strategy. ‘We threw away the rulebook and came up with all sorts of measures that you’d never normally advertise in advance of a general election,’ recalls Osborne.24

In the speech in Manchester, Osborne announced that the Conservatives would deal with the bulk of the deficit over the life of the parliament. Mervyn King had already suggested this timeframe: Osborne deliberately used it, without King’s knowledge, as it seemed sensible to align the Conservatives with the Bank’s thinking. He committed the Conservatives to ‘in year’ cuts in 2010, and laid out structural reforms that autumn to abolish the Financial Services Authority, to have more supervision of banks, which led to the setting up of the Prudential Regulation Authority in the Bank of England, the establishment of the Financial Policy Committee (also in the Bank of England), and to take all regulation into a new body, which was to be the Financial Conduct Authority. As he walked off the stage at the end of the speech, Osborne was reported as telling aides, ‘Now let’s see if I’ve cost us the election.’25 Ever the risk-taker, he relished the daring he had shown and the headlines which spoke of his decisiveness. Martin Kettle writing in the Guardian called the speech ‘smart, well delivered and in some respects really quite brave’.26 The Telegraph leader writers praised his ‘hard-headed realism’.27

Plan A was thus virtually all in place by Christmas 2009, five months before the general election, crafted in these three separate stages. The high command appeared united on the economic message, the party seemed content, large parts of the commentariat were won over. But at this point, the status quo became unbalanced. Hilton, who had come back from a sojourn in California, was not pleased. ‘What the fuck is all this focus just on cuts and negativity? It’ll cost us the election,’ he said. He eyeballed Cameron and told him that the narrative around the ‘Big Society’ and modernisation that the party had built up over the previous four years would be jeopardised unless the message of the long election campaign beginning in January 2010 wasn’t more positive. He argued forcefully to shift the focus from spending, which he thought a media-imposed narrative, and he was dyspeptic about the influence of communications director Andy Coulson. Coulson in return had no time for Hilton’s luftmensch theorising about localism and social action, which he thought lacked popular resonance with the core voters whose support the Conservatives would need if they were to win the election.

Worryingly for Cameron’s team, the Tories’ poll ratings had started to dip by Christmas, despite Osborne’s economic strategy receiving continuing support in large parts of the press. Cameron’s camp was divided. On one side stood Osborne and Coulson, and on the other, Hilton. Letwin, along with Llewellyn and Fall, was trying desperately to bridge both camps. It was a hopeless position.

January 2010 started badly. Cameron wanted to set the tone for the New Year with his appearance on BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday 10 January. Hilton wanted Cameron to apologise for the uninspiring start to the campaign made by all the parties, with poster launches, attack dossiers and an obsessive focus on the cuts and say, ‘This is the electorate’s campaign. Tell us what you want to talk about and we will do so.’ Coulson exploded when he heard, and heated discussions followed. A torn Cameron did not follow Hilton’s advice. Embarrassingly, Cameron then became embroiled in a media furore over whether photographs of him on billboards, put up across the country, had been digitally enhanced.28 At the end of the month, at the World Economic Forum at Davos, he tried pulling back from an overly harsh economic message by saying that any first-year cuts in spending would not be particularly ‘extensive’. A few days later, on the BBC Politics Show, he said that cuts would definitely not be ‘swingeing’; rather, the government would simply want to take a nibble out of the deficit to make ‘a start’.29 Private polling had been showing the Conservatives that their advocacy of deep cuts early on was politically highly risky.30 The impression of dissonance appeared all the greater when a defiant Osborne said on The Andrew Marr Show that ‘early action’ was required to avoid a ‘Greek-style budget crisis’.31 Cameron was uncomfortable and worried. Osborne punched back strongly in February in the annual Mais lecture, an important fixture among economic policymakers. Entitled ‘A New Economic Framework’, drafted by Harrison, it laid out more clearly than ever the entire Conservative vision of a tight fiscal policy on tax and spending, an active monetary policy to assist borrowing and investment, supply-side reform to bolster economic activity, and a rebalancing of the economy from consumption towards exports. Osborne argued ‘we have to deal with our debts to get our economy back on its feet’.32

Dissonance in Cameron’s camp continued all the way up to the general election. The Conservative manifesto title, Invitation to Join the Government of Britain, echoed Hilton’s mass participation idealism, and contained many ‘Big Society’ modernising ideas. But it equally spoke of the need to ‘deal with Labour’s debt crisis’ and said that savings of £12 billion could be made without impacting front-line services. The dual message was confusing, epitomised by an election poster that said they would ‘cut the deficit but not the NHS’.33

Cameron wasn’t sure which way to turn. The campaign was a mess, with Osborne’s and Coulson’s voices being heard on some days, and Hilton’s on others. Cameron’s heart inclined him towards Hilton, whose passion and message chimed deeply with his own, but his head drew him towards Coulson and Osborne, because he knew instinctively that the public finances required stern measures. The memory of Margaret Thatcher’s fiscal rectitude weighed heavily with Cameron and Osborne, as it did with the right-of-centre press whose support they wanted to maintain. Cameron couldn’t find his mojo or any passion during the election campaign, epitomised by his lacklustre performance in the TV debates against Brown and Clegg. He knew he had squandered the first debate, the only one he felt that really mattered. He felt terrible, that he’d let everybody down. He only found his stride again when he woke up on 7 May, the day after the general election, with one idea in his mind: a ‘big, open and comprehensive offer’ to the Lib Dems.

THREE

‘If we win’

6–12 May 2010

Cameron may not have won the election on Thursday 6 May. But he has not lost either. Yet. A ‘big, open and comprehensive offer’ to the Lib Dems is the thought in his mind when he awakes on the Friday morning, in his suite at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge Hotel, where he has been camping out through some of the campaign. The words are Steve Hilton’s but the seminal decision to deploy them is Cameron’s. He may have had only two or three hours’ sleep after going to bed at 6.30 a.m., but he awakes refreshed with the clear determination that he will make the Liberal Democrats an irresistible offer to form a coalition. His team arrive at 10 a.m. When he tells them, they are not surprised: ‘I’d have been flabbergasted if he’d come up with any other way forward,’ says a close aide. ‘My definite instinct was that it was the right thing to do given the circumstances,’ says Cameron.1 When Liz Sugg expresses surprise at why he intends to embrace a party they have been fighting so hard for weeks, he replies, ‘It is the right thing for the country.’2 Nick Clegg himself offers a less rose-tinted interpretation: ‘I don’t want to sound ungenerous, but it was the only way they were going to get into power.’3

Cameron’s team meet on election day at Hilton’s country house in Oxfordshire. They finalise details for the ‘If we win’ file, running over ministerial appointments one last time and reconfirming the grid of action for the vital first few weeks. They hold a sweepstake on how many seats they will take. ‘We’re going to win,’ Andrew Feldman, one of Cameron’s closest friends from Oxford and, in early 2010, chief executive of Conservative campaign headquarters, says emphatically. ‘We’re not going to win,’ Osborne replies curtly. Two weeks before, Osborne had reached the conclusion that the party was unlikely to win outright and the only way to power would be via a coalition government which it would dominate. Without it, any hopes of seeing Plan A and their domestic agenda enacted will be dead in the water. Too risky to be seen to have his own fingerprints anywhere near ‘defeatist’ talk of coalitions, Cameron continues to rail against the iniquities of any form of coalition after the election. It is Osborne therefore who asks Oliver Letwin, the supreme fixer, to analyse exactly what a deal with the Liberal Democrats might look like. The brain of the team locks himself away for a week at Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) exploring which policies the Conservatives might jettison, and what they might demand from the Lib Dems. ‘For weeks before I had been analysing every single statement that the Lib Dems had been putting out, so I was up to speed when I began this exercise. I knew their weaknesses and our strengths intimately.’4 The weekend before the general election, 1 and 2 May, Letwin meets William Hague, Llewellyn and Osborne at the latter’s London house to brief them on his conclusions.5 ‘We then secreted away the fruits of his detailed analysis, while we went flat out in the final last few days to do everything humanly possible to get us over the line.’

Osborne leaves Hilton’s home in the afternoon of polling day to travel up to his Tatton constituency in Cheshire. Cameron, Andy Coulson and Llewellyn, joined by Kate Fall and Gabby Bertin, who had been a press aide since the leadership campaign, go for dinner at Cameron’s home in Dean, several miles away.6 They are under no illusions. As they gather around the television screen, the results are greeted with a deadpan silence. The exit poll at 10 p.m. confirms what was expected: a hung parliament with the Conservatives as the largest party. There will be no election miracle. The Conservatives emerge after the final count with 307 to Labour’s 258 and fifty-seven for the Lib Dems out of 650 parliamentary seats. The Conservatives may be the largest party, and gain the largest number of seats (net ninety-seven) in a general election since 1931, but it is little consolation. They are left nineteen seats short of an overall majority. Pressure mounts suddenly on Cameron. Critics in the party and the right-wing press, suppressed during the campaign, are now on the airwaves blaming him for a lacklustre campaign and for failing to engage core Tory voters. At 3.30 a.m. on Friday, a newly-energised Brown flies south from his Scottish constituency, believing he can cling to power. Cameron says Brown has lost the right to govern, but does not publicly call for his resignation. The prime minister, for whom Cameron’s aides have such strong reservations, is far from finished yet.7

Before he went to bed, Cameron had told his team to reconvene in the morning so they can explore options. They all know, none more than Cameron, that a minority government in hock to the Conservative right wing will be their idea of a total nightmare. Cameron has no love for them, nor they for him. ‘Let’s face it, coalition really suits him,’ says one close aide. ‘Is he really going to be happy with a minority government, with Eurosceptics like Mark Reckless and Bill Cash knocking on his door every ten minutes?’

At 2.34 p.m. on Friday, Cameron speaks at a press conference at St Stephen’s Club, Westminster, saying that the Conservatives will approach the days ahead with the ‘national interest’ in mind, and he will be making the ‘big, open and comprehensive offer’ to the Lib Dems to work with him in forming a government. ‘Cameron’s decision to call for a genuine coalition partnership is very significant,’ says master of ceremonies, O’Donnell. ‘This wasn’t going to be a short-term deal: there was going to be a real commitment that it would last for the life of the parliament. That’s what he wanted.’8 Cameron’s words are deliberately chosen, falling short of mentioning a coalition by name, leaving some room for manoeuvre, and offering some reassurance to the large numbers of Conservative MPs for whom the Lib Dems are anathema. Cameron’s team knows that he must carry the party, including his leadership rival in 2005, David Davis, the Eurosceptics, and others on the right of the party who dislike his politics.

Five days of intense negotiation with the Lib Dems follow in the secrecy of the historic Cabinet Office at 70 Whitehall.9 Cameron delegates the details of negotiations to a four-man team: Osborne, Letwin, Llewellyn and Hague, who acts as their head.10 The Lib Dems include David Laws, Danny Alexander, Chris Huhne and Andrew Stunell. As they meet, television screens in the background show riots in Greece. The eurozone crisis, brewing since mid-2009, broke out into the open in February 2010. It focuses their minds on the importance of achieving a stable government to take Britain forward.

Hague and Alexander banish O’Donnell’s posse of civil servants from minuting their discussions. Left alone, both sides find an affinity: ‘Talks with the Conservatives go far better than we imagined. There were no rows or unpleasantness. They are polite and civilised. It started the relationship below the Clegg–Cameron level,’ says Laws.11 Hague emerges from the talks pleased not to have conceded more to the Lib Dems: there is an agreement to introduce a fixed-term parliament (later enacted in 2011), reform constituency boundaries, hold a referendum on the Alternative Vote (AV), reform the House of Lords, introduce a ‘pupil premium’ in schools, and raise the income tax threshold. These are not considered big deals: the Conservative team believe they will easily win the AV referendum, and neither the pupil premium nor the rise in tax thresholds are out of tune with party thinking.12 The Lib Dems insist they would only agree to support the package if they can secure a fixed-term parliament, thus binding the Conservatives into a coalition for a full five years. Tory negotiators agree, believing it will contribute to stability. To O’Donnell, the deliberations ‘provided a chance for both parties to drop their rubbish policies. It was all pretty much as expected. Obviously they agreed to go further than Labour on the extent and speed of the deficit reduction.’ The pace of the negotiations would have consequences. Some policies, such as NHS reform, get through, which ‘none of them understood – frankly no one examined them carefully’.13 Ken Clarke, who encouraged Cameron to form a ‘proper coalition’ after the election, is surprised at how soon an agreement is reached. ‘It was precisely because no one had any experience of forming a coalition that they drew up an extremely good agreement in three days flat – no one on the Continent would have done that so quickly.’14

Letwin estimates that 80% of the policies hammered out in the ‘Coalition Agreement’ are straightforward because both parties have relatively similar proposals. The hardest concessions for the Lib Dems to swallow are retaining nuclear power stations and renewing the Trident missile system, which the Conservatives make clear are essential, but which the Lib Dems opposed in their manifesto. Both parties lose only some 10% of their favoured policies. The Conservatives lose out on inheritance tax, the West Lothian Question (namely the issue that since devolution in 1999, Scottish MPs could vote on English domestic matters) and the replacement of the Human Rights Act.15 Osborne is sanguine about losing inheritance tax. He knows it would be portrayed by Labour as a bung to the rich and has doubts about his ability to have got it through in his planned Emergency Budget.

Osborne thinks the discussions are not difficult because the areas of overlap are considerable. On the matter of Plan A however, the Conservatives are resolute: ‘The big judgement the Lib Dems had to make in policy terms was to back our fiscal judgement, which they had attacked during the election campaign,’ he says. ‘They consented because we insisted that it was non-negotiable.’16 Osborne believes that discussions the Lib Dem leadership held in private with O’Donnell, Nicholas Macpherson (the permanent secretary to the Treasury) and Mervyn King acted as a reality check, educating them in the need for urgent and tough action. He credits Vince Cable as a highly significant player recognising that Plan A was the right thing to do.17

Hague is struck by the naivety of the Lib Dem negotiating team, as by their lack of knowledge of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century coalitions. ‘Liberals always come out badly.’ Hague realises this, his Conservative colleagues know it, but the Lib Dem leadership he thinks does not. He is surprised too by their lack of familiarity with European coalitions, where the junior partner, whether in Ireland, Germany or elsewhere, is frequently annihilated at the next election. After the final meeting of the five days, Hague staggers home at 1 a.m. and tells his wife, Ffion, with prescience: ‘Well, we have formed a government … but we might well have destroyed the Liberal Party.’18

Without Clegg, the coalition would not have been formed. None of his predecessors as leader – Menzies Campbell, Charles Kennedy nor even Paddy Ashdown – would have countenanced a coalition with the Conservatives. Clegg insists too it will be a full coalition, not a ‘supply and confidence’ deal to enable a minority government to get through its Budgets and survive confidence votes, which would have been far more fragile. Clegg believes that the Lib Dems have the Conservatives on the run, and that unlike Labour’s team of Peter Mandelson, Ed Balls and Ed Miliband, the Tories are biddable: ‘Frankly, for Cameron and Osborne, the alternative to joining us was not pretty. They would have been out on their ears within two seconds at the hands of their own party.’19 So given this realisation, why does he not push harder?

The dominance the Conservatives achieve in the Coalition Agreement which emerges from the talks is much down to Letwin’s planning for such an eventuality.20 ‘In contrast, I was not aware of any detailed planning on the Labour side,’ recalls Gus O’Donnell.21 Clegg always deemed coalition a possibility, but put in less serious work during the campaign because the Lib Dems lacked the resources to do it. The Conservative Party is thus best prepared for coalition talks in May 2010 by a considerable margin.22 The Coalition Agreement is drawn up by centre-leaning, pragmatic Conservatives, and by right-leaning Lib Dems. Many MPs, still more members in both parties, do not share their outlook. Here at the very genesis of the coalition, the seeds of future strife and discord are sown.

On Monday evening, 10 May, with the coalition talks at a delicate point, Cameron meets his Conservative MPs in Committee Room 14 in the House of Commons. It is the most important meeting of that body in the entire 2010–15 parliament. His MPs have the power to strangle the discussions with the Lib Dems before they reach a conclusion. Cameron tells them that Brown is offering the Lib Dems the AV system without a referendum. He tells them that unless he can offer the Lib Dems an AV referendum, the talks might break down.

Critics later accuse Cameron of bouncing the party into a coalition in this meeting. During the discussions with the Lib Dems, only a handful of phone calls take place between the Conservative negotiators and the rest of their party, and senior figures in the 1922 Committee are disappointed to see only ‘some negotiators running by and asking for our views on what should and should not be considered’. Many feel the process is neither ‘systematic’ nor ‘comprehensive’. They also say the PM exploited the fact that 147, almost half of the 307 Conservative MPs elected, are new, overawed and highly biddable. Another ninety-plus had served on the back benches in Opposition and are eager for ministerial jobs. The scenario Cameron offered ‘made most colleagues think there was no choice’, says Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee. ‘A lot of people were unhappy with what was being done, but felt they couldn’t say so.’23 For the time being, discontented MPs are quiet. But they come to bitterly resent being told they effectively have no choice other than a coalition with the Lib Dems. It confirms their impression that Cameron and his allies would sooner deal with Clegg and the Lib Dems than with them. How right they are.

The Conservative shadow Cabinet discuss and approve the Coalition Agreement on Tuesday afternoon, with the world’s media speculating what is going on. Brown is pacing around Number 10 but knows the game is up. He is told by officials that he cannot go to the Palace to resign until details of the new government are locked into place. Cameron is given the green light. Suddenly, everything happens very quickly. Llewellyn needs the ‘If we win’ file. At 5.40 p.m., he calls senior party aide Laurence Mann to retrieve it from CCHQ. Behind Mann’s desk in his office in Downing Street throughout Cameron’s premiership is pinned a fading receipt for a short taxi journey that starts at 5.41 p.m. and finishes at 5.59 p.m. that Tuesday. Mann jumps into a cab in the street outside Norman Shaw building and asks to be taken to CCHQ. He runs in and lifts the file out of the party’s safe, trying to look as unobtrusive as possible. A group of aides crowd around him. ‘He is smiling,’ shouts out one. Mann is silent, jumps back in the cab and just before Big Ben chimes six o’clock, runs back up to Cameron’s office.24

Llewellyn joins him. Moments before, Cameron has called him back to the office from the marathon in the Cabinet Office. Llewellyn worries his departure might lead to media speculation that Cameron is about to form a government. So officials take him from the Cabinet Office through a tunnel that comes out in Horse Guards Parade. He then walks round the back of the Foreign Office and enters the Norman Shaw building, thankful for the detailed preparation work over the last few months which Mann carries in his hands. Cameron’s first hours in Number 10, which follow, have been described in Chapter 1.

Fast-forward to the next day. It is 2.20 p.m. on Wednesday 12 May. Cameron and Clegg are waiting inside the Cabinet Room for a press conference which they have decided will work better outside under a mid-May sun. Aides notice how well and naturally they relate to each other. Warmth, generosity and good humour are palpable.25 Clegg’s aides are watching Cameron closely. They do not know him well yet and do not know what to expect.26 Both leaders hear the journalists assembling for the press conference in the Rose Garden below. Neither have any illusions. They have both said and thought terrible things about each other. Moments before, Cameron has received a brief listing the criticisms he has voiced of Clegg, so he can be prepared for questions.27 ‘What we need is a show of unity and a light touch,’ Coulson tells them both shortly before they walk down the steps into the garden. They hardly needed the advice. The obvious rapport between both men grates with Cameron’s malcontented backbenchers. ‘They saw Cameron and Clegg looking rather smug about being freed from having to deal with their own barking wings,’ says a friend of Cameron’s.28 The word the backbenchers most detest is when Cameron says a minority government would have been ‘unappealing’. Not to them it wouldn’t. Payback will be just a matter of time.

The coalition angers many Conservative MPs further because it means fewer jobs to go around for them. The Coalition Agreement doesn’t say anything about ministerial posts, only policy. Cameron and Clegg agree that positions should be allocated in proportion to the number of MPs, i.e. roughly three to one. But for Cabinet, the Lib Dems do even better with five full members. They say that in addition to Clegg and David Laws, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, they want Energy, Business and they also claim Scotland, because the Conservatives have only one MP north of the border. Lib Dems debate amongst themselves whether Clegg should have his own Whitehall department; Cameron is very happy to place him in the Home Office. Conversations with allied parties in coalition in Europe hurriedly take place: they conclude that the deputy prime minister (DPM), as he will be called, should mirror the prime minister himself and not run his own government department, allowing him to range across all departments. They later wonder whether they have made the right call: the Civil Service fails to provide matching resourcing for the DPM’s office to allow it to compete with the considerable resources at the disposal of the prime minister. The ratio of eighteen Conservatives to five Lib Dems in full-time positions in the Cabinet rubs salt in the coalition wound for many in Cameron’s party, especially when it is announced that these five posts will be retained for the Lib Dems all the way through the life of the parliament. But at the top, all is harmony. ‘What struck me was how relatively easy the appointments for the coalition government were to make,’ says O’Donnell. ‘Much of it was attributable to the closeness of Cameron’s relationship with Clegg. I was really amazed by how mature both sides were, even down to agreeing who should chair the various Cabinet committees.’29

Cameron works closely with Osborne and Hague in making the final switches required for coalition. Hague himself becomes First Secretary of State. The Conservative Cabinet appointments see very few surprises; one is Theresa May to Home Secretary, an appointment that brings tears of joy to her eyes. The appointment of Iain Duncan Smith to Work and Pensions Secretary is another surprise as he hadn’t held a portfolio in Opposition, though he had made it clear it was the post he wanted. Finally, it is a surprise that Chris Grayling is not offered a Cabinet position (though he later joins in September 2012 as Justice Secretary).

The decision to have a small-scale Number 10, attributable to Letwin, causes some consternation. Letwin looks back fondly to his time in the Policy Unit in the 1980s when Downing Street was regarded (not always correctly) as operating very effectively under Thatcher. Two factors were in their minds. ‘Because tensions between the prime minister and Chancellor had gone on for decades and were endemic, we wanted the whole of Number 10, Number 11, the Treasury and Cabinet Office facing in one direction. We knew the money would never be controlled properly if we were not absolutely sharing the same overall strategic direction,’ recalls Letwin.30 Avoiding Number 10 breaking up into a series of sub-units, all pulling in different directions, was another concern. A small PM’s office was thus considered by some to be much more biddable. Others understand that a strong Number 10 is necessary for the delivery of policy. In the months leading up to the election, Hilton and Rohan Silva spoke to some of the key New Labour figures, including Blair (twice), his chief of staff Jonathan Powell, head of policy Matthew Taylor, and speechwriter Phil Collins. They all said that Number 10 should remain big, advice that was ignored. Various Labour-devised units to enhance policy implementation, like the Delivery Unit, are promptly closed down in Number 10. Cameron will be a trusting, ‘hands off’ PM: why does he require a large office at the centre? But he soon realises he has been hasty to throw the baby out with the bathwater. He is critically short of capacity at the centre. The Policy Unit is thus expanded again from 2011, partly as a result of the patient chivvying of Jeremy Heywood, who repeatedly points out that Number 10 is not fit-for-purpose. But the inner circle around Cameron does not scale up: it remains small and tight. There are real gains from this, not least cohesion. But its social exclusivity is a source of irritation and anger which is to rebound on Cameron all the way down to the general election in 2015. Do they have the experience, the breadth and the stomach to master the maelstrom of political, social, military, security, economic and diplomatic challenges that are about to be hurled at them?

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