David Cameron

Who was David Cameron?

David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton (born 9 October 1966), is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. Born in London to an upper-middle-class family, Cameron was educated at Eton College and Brasenose College, Oxford. The government also attempted to enforce stricter immigration policies via the Home Office hostile environment policy, introduced reforms to education, and oversaw the 2012 London Olympics. Cameron was Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016 and Leader of the Opposition from 2005 to 2010. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Witney from 2001 to 2016. After his premiership he was elevated to the House of Lords as a life peer in November 2023 to serve as Foreign Secretary in the Sunak ministry until July 2024.

Cameron identifies as a one-nation conservative and has been associated with both economically and socially liberal policies. He is the most recent British prime minister to have held the office continually for a full parliament of five years. After becoming an MP at the 2001 general election, he served in the opposition Shadow Cabinet under the Conservative leader Michael Howard, and succeeded Howard in 2005. Following the 2010 general election, negotiations led to Cameron becoming prime minister as the head of a coalition government formed by the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats. Cameron's premiership was marked by the effects of the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession, which the government sought to address through austerity measures. Parliament passed the Health and Social Care Act and the Welfare Reform Act, which allowed the government to introduce large-scale changes to healthcare and welfare.

It privatised Royal Mail and some other state assets, implemented the Equality Act 2010, and legalised same-sex marriage in England and Wales. Constitutionally, the government oversaw the 2011 United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum and the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, both of which confirmed Cameron's favoured "no" outcome. He introduced the Brexit referendum on the UK's continuing membership of the European Union in 2016, and supported the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, which lost. Following the success of Vote Leave, Cameron resigned as prime minister and party leader and was succeeded by Theresa May, his home secretary. Cameron resigned his seat in the House of Commons in September 2016, and thereafter maintained a low political profile for several years. He was president of Alzheimer's Research UK from 2017 to 2023, and returned to this position in 2025. He was implicated in the Greensill scandal.

In 2023 he was appointed foreign secretary by Rishi Sunak, that appointment facilitated by his becoming a member of the House of Lords as a life peer. He served as foreign secretary until the Conservatives lost the 2024 general election. Cameron has been credited for helping to modernise the Conservative Party and for reducing the UK's national deficit. He has also been criticised for austerity measures, his support for foreign intervention in the Libyan and Syrian civil wars, as well as his decision to hold the EU membership referendum, which led to political instability in the UK during the late 2010s. David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton, is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016.

Historical significance

Internationally, Cameron oversaw Operation Ellamy in the First Libyan Civil War and authorised the bombing of the Islamic State in Syria. When the Conservatives secured an unexpected majority in the 2015 general election, Cameron began leading a Conservative-majority government. His memoir, For the Record, was published in 2019.