How time flies. Half a year has passed since former prime minister David Cameron made a shock return to frontline politics — and the House of Lords. His appointment as Foreign Secretary was a controversial one, with certain sections of the Tory party pretty sceptical at Dave’s big return. His ardent support for Remain ruffled some feathers, combined with an underlying resentment that Sunak maybe didn’t much value the talent pool among his own colleagues in the Commons.
Cameron’s history of foreign policy failings isn’t short, either. From his Libya adventure and the Syria debacle to the Brexit gamble that cost him his job, the former Prime Minister certainly isn’t without a chequered past. So how has Cameron handled the last six months? Well, Mr S has compiled a handy list of gaffes committed during his rather short tenure…
Reluctance over Rwanda
In a win for the government’s migration policy, the Rwanda bill eventually passed through parliament last month, following a protracted ping-pong between the Commons and the Lords. But while Sunak was celebrating his small victory, not all of his ministers seemed convinced that the law will actually work. Among the sceptics is, er, Lord Cameron himself, who was more than a little apprehensive when he was grilled by ITV.
Asked whether he would have pursued the same policy if he was still in the top job, a rather reluctant Cameron answered: ‘Well, we had a totally different situation where you could return people directly to France. I’d love that situation to be the case again.’ The Foreign Secretary even hinted that Brexit might be to blame — quite forgetting of course that under the pre-Brexit Dublin Agreement, only a few hundred removals were achieved at most. Viewers who were tuning in for a full-throated defence of Rishi’s Rwanda plan will have been a little disappointed…
‘Don’t retaliate’, Cameron orders Israel
The Foreign Secretary has faced a backlash over his stance on the issue of Israel’s self-defence. After Iran’s military offensive targeted Israel with drones and missiles last month, Lord Cameron used his first broadcast round since he was parachuted back into government to urge Israel not to retaliate. While he slammed Iran’s move as a ‘very, very dangerous act in an already dangerous world’ on the BBC, Cameron took to the airwaves to warn Netanyahu: ‘Our advice is don’t retaliate… We wouldn’t be supporting retaliatory action.’ He went on: ‘We are urging them to think with head as well as heart, to be smart as well as tough. The right thing to do is not to escalate.’
It wasn’t not the first time that Cameron cautioned Israel, writing in the Sunday Times at the beginning of last month that the country has ‘a right to self-defence that we should support’ but added UK backing is ‘not unconditional’. Mr S can only imagine how those comments went down in Netanyahu’s government…
Trump charm offensive
During a recent press trip to the US, Lord Cameron took a detour to Mar-a-Lago to drop in on one Donald Trump. The Foreign Secretary was trying to make the case for continued support for Ukraine and wants to ensure that America continues to provide aid to the country if Trump is elected to the White House. But Cameron’s decision to visit a private citizen (currently) out of office proved controversial — forcing the Foreign Office to issue a statement asserting that ‘it is standard practice for ministers to meet with opposition candidates as part of their routine international engagement’.
Cameron hasn’t always received the warmest of receptions from US Republicans on the issue of Ukraine. Following his ill-advised op-ed for the Hill, congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene suggested that Cameron could ‘kiss my ass’. Hardly Love Actually is it? And Cameron’s own relationship with Trump hasn’t always been rosy. When he was Prime Minister — and before the former president was even elected — Cameron hit out at the American entrepreneur-turned-politician, saying: ‘If he came to visit our country I think it’d unite us all against him’. So much for diplomatic.
Foreign Secretary refuses to take questions on foreign issues
Despite being Foreign Secretary, Cameron hasn’t always been happy to answer questions about his role — as exampled by a slightly awkward interview on the BBC’s Ukrainecast at the beginning of April. After the tragic news of the deaths of three British aid workers killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza was announced, Cameron was asked about the situation in the Middle East on the podcast. But before his interviewer had finished asking her question, however, the Foreign Secretary cut her off: ‘This is Ukrainecast. I’m not- I’m doing that later.’ When pressed again, Cameron mumbled excuses, before bluntly replying when asked if he would take any questions on Israel: ‘No.’
And at the same time, it was reported that Cameron was refusing to take questions on the issue from MPs either. So much for transparency…
Ukraine missteps riles up Russia
Cameron’s latest blunder involves a foreign power with a reputation for unreasonableness. During a visit to Kyiv at the start of the month, the Foreign Secretary said that Ukraine had a right to use weapons provided by Britain to strike targets in Russia — adding that it was up to Ukraine whether to do so. As one might expect, such high-handedness hasn’t gone down particularly well with Russia.
Moscow attacked Cameron’s words as a serious escalation and claimed that his comments were an acknowledgement that the UK was now a de facto part of the conflict. They insist that the British Ambassador, Nigel Casey, was hauled in for a meeting to explain the remarks, while Whitehall refutes this, calling the interview only a ‘diplomatic meeting’.
The Russian foreign ministry released a rather angry statement last week, saying:
The Ambassador was called upon to reflect on the inevitable catastrophic consequences of such hostile steps by London and immediately refute the belligerent provocative statements of the head of the Foreign Office in the most decisive and unambiguous way.
Oh dear…
The Greensill scandal rears its head, again…
With today officially marking six months since Cameron returned to government, it also marks six months of stonewalling about his part in the Greensill lobbying scandal.
Back in 2021, Cameron reportedly made around £8.2 million from promoting controversial finance business Greensill Capital, which later folded amid criminal inquiries into alleged fraud. Prior to the company’s collapse, Cameron had intensively lobbied civil servants in 2020 to allow Greensill to lend up to £10 billion in emergency Covid loans. But when pushed on the issue by the BBC on the day he returned to the fold, the new Foreign Secretary simply refused to answer the questions. Talk about open government eh?
Will Cameron manage to dodge media scrutiny on his role in the scandal until the next election? You can only run for so long…
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