David Cameron United Kingdom Prime Minister

David Cameron 9 October 1966 Born in London to wealthy upper middle class parents is a British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 2010 to July 2016. He served as the Leader of the Conservative Party from December 2005 to July 2016 and was Member of Parliament for Witney from June 2001 to September 2016. Cameron identifies as a One-Nation Conservative and has been associated with both economically liberal and socially liberal policies. Cameron was educated at Heather down School Eton College and Brasenose College Oxford. From 1988 to 1993 he worked at the Conservative Research Department assisting the Conservative Prime Minister John Major before leaving politics to work for Carlton Communications in 1994. Becoming an MP in 2001 he served in the opposition shadow cabinet under Conservative leader Michael Howard succeeding Howard in 2005. Cameron was born in Marylander London and raised in Peace more, Berkshire. He has a brother, Alexander Cameron born 1963 a barrister and two sisters, Tania Rachel born 1965 and Clare Louise born 1971. His father Ian was born at Blair more House near Huntley Aberdeen shire and died near Toulon France on 8 September 2010 Ian was born with both legs deformed and underwent repeated operations to correct them. Blair more was built by Cameron's great-great-grandfather, Alexander Goddess who had made a fortune in the grain trade in Chicago Illinois before returning to Scotland in the 1880s. Blair more was sold soon after Ian's birth. Cameron has said on my mother's side of the family, her mother was a Llewellyn so Welsh I'm a real mixture of Scottish Welsh, and English. He has also referenced the German Jewish ancestry of one of his great-grandfathers, Arthur Levity, a descendant of the Yiddish author Elias Levity. From the age of seven, Cameron was educated at two independent schools at Heather down School in Winfield in Bark shire which counts Prince Andrew and Prince Edward among its old boys. Owing to good grades, Cameron entered its top academic class almost two years early. At the age of thirteen, he went on to Eton College in Berkshire following his father and elder brother. His early interest was in art. Six weeks before taking his O-Levels he was caught smoking cannabis. He admitted the offense and had not been involved in selling drugs, so he was not expelled but was fined, prevented from leaving the school grounds, and given a "Georgie" a punishment which involved copying 500 lines of Latin text. Cameron passed twelve O-Levels and then three A-levels History of art History, in which he was taught by Michael Kid son and Economics with Politics. He obtained three 'A' grades and a '1' grade in the Scholarship Level exam in Economics and Politics. The following autumn, he passed the entrance exam for the University of Oxford and was offered an exhibition at Brasenose College. After leaving Eton in 1984 Cameron started a nine month gap year. Cameron graduated in 1988 with a first-class honors BA degree later promoted to an MA by seniority. For three months he worked as a researcher for his godfather Tim Rat bone then Conservative MP for Lewes during which time he attended debates in the House of Commons. Through his father, he was then employed for a further three months in Hong Kong by Jar dine Matheson as a 'ship jumper', an administrative post.

Returning from Hong Kong, Cameron visited the then Soviet Union where he was approached by two Russian men speaking fluent English. Cameron was later told by one of his professors that it was "definitely an attempt" by the KGB to recruit him. In October 1985, Cameron began his Bachelor of Arts course in Philosophy, Politics and Economic at Brasenose College Oxford. His tutor, Professor Vernon Bogdanor has described him as one of the ablest students he has taught with moderate and sensible Conservative political views. While at Oxford, Cameron was a member of the student dining society the Bulling don Club which has a reputation for an outlandish drinking culture associated with boisterous behavior and damaging property. Cameron's period in the Bulling don Club was examined in a Channel 4 doc-drama, When Boris Met DAV.

After graduation, Cameron worked for the Conservative Research Department between September 1988 and 1993. His first brief was Trade and Industry, Energy and Privatization, and he befriended fellow young colleagues including Edward Llewellyn Ed Vaizey and Rachel Whetstone. They and others formed a group they called the "Smith Square set", which was dubbed the "Brat Pack" by the press, though it is better known as the "Nothing Hill set, a name given to it pejoratively by Derek Conway. In 1991, Cameron was seconded to Downing Street to work on briefing John Major for the then bi-weekly sessions of Prime Minister's Questions. One newspaper gave Cameron the credit for sharper. Dispatch box performances by Major which included highlighting for Major a dreadful piece of doublespeak by Tony Blair then the Labour Employment spokesman over the effect of a national minimum wage. He became head of the political section of the Conservative Research Department, and in August 1991 was tipped to follow Judith Chaplin as Political Secretary to the Prime Minister.

However, Cameron lost to Jonathan Hill, who was appointed in March 1992. Instead, Cameron was given the responsibility for briefing Major for his press conferences during the 1992 general election. During the campaign, Cameron was one of the young "brat pack" of party strategists who worked between 12 and 20 hours a day, sleeping in the house of Alan Duncan in Gaffer street west mister which had been Major's campaign headquarters during his bid for the Conservative leadership. Cameron headed the economic section; it was while working on this campaign that Cameron first worked closely with and befriended Steve Hilton who was later to become Director of Strategy during his party leadership. The strain of getting up at 04:45 every day was reported to have led Cameron to decide to leave politics in favor of journalism. The Conservatives' unexpected success in the 1992 election led Cameron to hit back at older party members who had criticized him and his colleagues, saying "whatever people say about us, we got the campaign right," and that they had listened to their campaign workers on the ground rather than the newspapers. He revealed he had led other members of the team across Smith Square to jeer at Transport House the former Labour headquarters. Cameron was rewarded with a promotion to Special Adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont. Cameron was working for Lamont at the time of Black Wednesday when pressure from currency speculators forced the pound sterling out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. At the 1992 Conservative Party conference, Cameron had difficulty trying to arrange to brief the speakers in the economic debate, having to resort to putting messages on the internal television system imploring the mover of the motion, Patricia Morris to contact him. Later that month Cameron joined a delegation of Special Advisers who visited Germany to build better relations with the Christian Democratic Union he was reported to be "still smarting" over the Bundesbank  contribution to the economic crisis.

Lamont fell out with John Major after Black Wednesday and became highly unpopular with the public. Taxes needed to be raised in the 1993 Budget, and Cameron fed the options Lamont was considering through to Conservative Campaign Headquarters for their political acceptability to be assessed. By May 1993, the Conservatives' average poll rating dropped below 30%, where they would remain until the 1997 general election. Major and Lamont's personal ratings also declined dramatically. However, Lamont's unpopularity did not necessarily affect Cameron: he was considered as a potential "kamikaze candidate for the Newbury by-election which includes the area where he grew up. However, Cameron decided not to stand. During the by-election, Lamont gave the response "Jane regretted rein" to a question about whether he most regretted claiming to see "the green shoots of recovery" or admitting to "singing in his bath" with happiness at leaving the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. Cameron was identified by one journalist as having inspired this gaffe; it was speculated that the heavy Conservative defeat in Newbury may have cost Cameron his chance of becoming Chancellor himself, even though as he was not a Member of Parliament he could not have been. Lamont was sacked at the end of May 1993, and decided not to write the usual letter of resignation; Cameron was given the responsibility to issue to the press a statement of self-justification. After Lamont was sacked, Cameron remained at the Treasury for less than a month before being specifically recruited by Home Secretary Michael Howard. It was commented that he was still "very much in favor and it was later reported that many at the Treasury would have preferred Cameron to carry on. At the beginning of September 1993, Cameron applied to go on Conservative Central Office's list of Prospective Parliamentary Candidates. Cameron was much more socially liberal than Howard but enjoyed working for him. According to Derek Lewis then Director-General of Her Majesty's Prison Service Cameron showed him a "his and hers list" of proposals made by Howard and his wife, Sandra. Lewis said that Sandra Howard list included reducing the quality of prison food although Sandra Howard denied this claim. Lewis reported that Cameron was "uncomfortable" about the list. In defending Sandra Howard and insisting that she made no such proposal, the journalist Bruce Anderson wrote that Cameron had proposed a much shorter definition on prison catering which revolved around the phrase "balanced diet", and that Lewis had written thanking Cameron for a valuable contribution.

During his work for Howard, Cameron often briefed the media. In March 1994, someone leaked to the press that the Labour Party had called for a meeting with John Major to discuss a consensus on the Prevention of Terrorism Act. After an inquiry failed to find the source of the leak, Labour MP Peter Mandelson demanded assurance from Howard that Cameron had not been responsible, which Howard gave. A senior Home Office civil servant noted the influence of Howard's Special Advisers, saying previous incumbents "would listen to the evidence before making a decision. Howard just talks to young public school gentlemen from the party headquarters. In July 1994, Cameron left his role as Special Adviser to work as the Director of Corporate Affairs at Carlton Communications. Carlton, which had won the franchise for London weekdays in 1991, was a growing media company which also had film-distribution and video-producing arms. Cameron was suggested for the role to Carlton executive chairman Michael P. Green by his later mother-in-law Lady Astor. Cameron left Carlton to run for Parliament in 1997, returning to his job after his defeat. In 1997, Cameron played up the Company's prospects for digital terrestrial television for which it joined with ITV Granada and Sky to form British Digital Broadcasting. In a round table discussion on the future of broadcasting in 1998 he criticized the effect of overlapping different regulators on the industry. Carlton's consortium did win the digital terrestrial franchise but the resulting company suffered difficulties in attracting subscribers. Cameron resigned as Director of Corporate Affairs in February 2001 in order to run for Parliament for a second time, although he remained on the payroll as a consultant.

Cameron sought to re brand the Conservatives embracing an increasingly socially liberal position. The 2010 general election led to Cameron becoming Prime Minister as the head of a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats His premiership was marked by the ongoing effects of the late-2000s financial crisis these involved a large deficit in government finances that his government sought to reduce through austerity measures. His administration introduced large-scale changes to welfare immigration policy education and healthcare. It privatized the Royal Mail and some other state assets and legalized same sex marriage.

Internationally his government militarily intervened in the Libyan Civil War and later authorized the bombing of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant domestically his government oversaw the referendum on voting reform and Scottish independence referendum both of which confirmed Cameron's favored outcome. When the Conservatives secured an unexpected majority in the 2015 general election he remained as Prime Minister leading a Conservative government. To fulfill a manifesto pledge, he introduced a referendum on the UK continuing membership of the EU. Cameron supported continued membership following the success of the Leave vote he resigned to make way for a new Prime Minister and was succeeded by Theresa May.

Cameron has been praised for modernizing the Conservative Party and for decreasing the United Kingdom's national deficit. Conversely, he has been criticized by figures on both the left and right and has been accused of political opportunism and elitism. Cameron appeared on the Forbes List of The World's Most Powerful People from 2010. Cameron is the younger son of Ian Donald Cameron 1932–2010 a stockbroker and his wife Mary Fleur Mount; born 1934 a retired Justice of the Peace and a daughter of Sir William Mount 2nd Baronet. Cameron's parents were married on 20 October 1962. The journalist Toby Young has described Cameron's background as being upper middle class.

Cameron determinedly attempted to increase his public visibility, offering quotations on matters of public controversy. He opposed the payment of compensation to Gurbux Singh, who had resigned as head of the Commission for Racial Equality after a confrontation with the police and commented that the Home Affairs Select Committee had taken a long time to discuss whether the phrase "black market" should be used However, he was passed over for a front-bench promotion in July 2002; Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith did invite Cameron and his ally George Osborne to coach him on Prime Minister's Questions in November 2002. The next week, Cameron deliberately abstained in a vote on allowing same-sex and unmarried couples to adopt children jointly, against a whip to oppose; his abstention was noted. The wide scale of abstentions and rebellious votes destabilized the Duncan Smith leadership. He believes that British Muslims have a duty to integrate into British culture, but noted in an article published in 2007 that the Muslim community finds aspects such as high divorce rates and drug use uninspiring, and that "Not for the first time, I found myself thinking that it is mainstream Britain which needs to integrate more with the British Asian way of life, not the other way around. In 2010 he appointed the first Muslim member of the British cabinet, Baroness Warsi as a minister without portfolio, and in 2012 made her a special minister of state in foreign affairs. She resigned, however, in August 2014 over the government's handling of the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. Whilst urging members of his party to support the coalition's proposals for same-sex marriage Cameron said that he backed gay marriage not in spite of his conservatism but because he is a conservative, and claimed it was about equality. In 2012, Cameron publicly apologized for Thatcher-era policies on homosexuality, specifically the introduction of the controversial Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which he described as "a mistake"

In June 2003, Cameron was appointed a shadow minister in the Privy Council Office as a deputy to Eric Forth, then Shadow Leader of the House. He also became a vice-chairman of the Conservative Party when Michael Howard took over the leadership in November of that year. He was appointed Opposition frontbench local government spokesman in 2004, before being promoted to the Shadow Cabinet that June as head of policy co-ordination. Later, he became Shadow Education Secretary in the post-election reshuffle.

Following the Labour victory in the May 2005 general election Michael Howard announced his resignation as leader of the Conservative Party and set a lengthy timetable for the leadership election. Cameron announced on 29 September 2005 that he would be a candidate. Parliamentary colleagues supporting him included Boris Johnson Shadow Chancellor George Osborne, Shadow Defense Secretary and deputy leader of the party Michael An cram, Oliver Let win and former party leader William Hague. His campaign did not gain wide support until his speech, delivered without notes, at the 2005 Conservative party conference. In the speech he vowed to make people "feel good about being Conservatives again" and said he wanted "to switch on a whole new generation.

In the first ballot of Conservative MPs on 18 October 2005, Cameron came second, with 56 votes, slightly more than expected; David Davis had fewer than predicted at 62 votes; Liam Fox came third with 42 votes; and Kenneth Clarke was eliminated with 38 votes. In the second ballot on 20 October 2005, Cameron came first with 90 votes; David Davis was second, with 57; and Liam Fox was eliminated with 51 votes. All 198 Conservative MPs voted in both ballots. The next stage of the election process, between Davis and Cameron, was a vote open to the entire party membership. Cameron was elected with more than twice as many votes as Davis and more than half of all ballots issued; Cameron won 134,446 votes on a 78% turnout to Davis's 64,398. Although Davis had initially been the favorite, it was widely acknowledged that his candidacy was marred by a disappointing conference speech. Cameron's election as the Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition was announced on 6 December 2005. As is customary for an Opposition leader not already a member, upon election Cameron became a member of the Privy Council being formally approved to join on 14 December 2005, and sworn of the Council on 8 March 2006.

During his successful 2005 campaign to be elected Leader of the Conservative Party, Cameron pledged that the Conservative Party's Members of the European Parliament would leave the European People's Party group, which had a "federalist" approach to the European Union. Once elected Cameron began discussions with right-wing and Eurocentric parties in other European countries, mainly in Eastern Europe, and in July 2006 he concluded an agreement to form the Movement for European Reform with the Czech Civic Democratic Party, leading to the formation of a new European Parliament group, the European Conservatives and Reformists in 2009 after the European Parliament elections. Cameron attended a gathering at Warsaw Palladium cinema celebrating the foundation of the alliance. In forming the caucus, which had 54 MEP drawn from eight of the 27 EU member states Cameron reportedly broke with two decades of Conservative co-operation with the centre right Christian Democrats, the European People's Party on the grounds that they are dominated by European federalists and supporters of the Lisbon treaty EPP leader Wilfred Martens former Prime Minister of Belgium, has stated "Cameron's campaign has been to take his party back to the centre in every policy area with one major exception: Europe. ... I can't understand his tactics. Merkel and Sarkozy will never accept his Euroscepticism.

On 11 May 2010, following the resignation of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister and on his recommendation, Elizabeth II invited Cameron to form a government. At age 43, Cameron became the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812, beating the record previously set by Tony Blair in May 1997. In his first address outside 10 Downing Street he announced his intention to form a coalition government, the first since the Second World War, with the Liberal Democrats. Cameron in 2009 as Leader of the Opposition, with Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, who later became Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Lib Dem spokesman Chris Huhne. Cameron outlined how he intended to "put aside party differences and work hard for the common good and for the national interest. As one of his first moves Cameron appointed Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, as Deputy Prime Minister on 11 May 2010. Between them, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats controlled 363 seats in the House of Commons, with a majority of 76 seats. On 2 June 2010, when Cameron took his first session of Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) as Prime Minister, he began by offering his support and condolences to those affected by the shootings in Cambria

On 5 February 2011, Cameron criticized the failure of 'state multiculturalism in his first speech as PM on radicalization and the causes of terrorism. In July 2015, he outlined a five-year strategy to counter Islamist extremism and subversive teachings. Cameron agreed to hold the Scottish independence referendum, 2014 and eliminated the "devomax" option from the ballot for a straight out yes or no vote. He supported the successful Better Together campaign. He had also backed a successful campaign to retain the status quo in a referendum on changing the voting system held at the request of his coalition partners. He supported the introduction of gay marriage despite more of his own Conservative MPs voting against the move than for it, meaning the support of Lib Dem MPs in government and Labour MPs in opposition was required to allow it to pass.

Earlier in his term he had managed to secure a huge majority for UK participation in UN-backed military action in Libya However, Cameron became the first prime minister in over 100 years to lose a foreign policy vote in the House of Commons over proposed military action against Assad's regime in Syria. On 7 May 2015, Cameron was re-elected UK Prime Minister with a majority in the Commons. The Conservative Party's decisive win in the general election was as a surprise victory, as most polls and commentators predicted the outcome would be too close to call and result in a second hung parliament Cameron said of his first term when returned as Prime Minister for a second term that he was "proud to lead the first coalition government in 70 years" and offered particular thanks to Clegg for his role in it. Forming the first Conservative majority government since 1992, David Cameron became the first Prime Minister to be re-elected immediately after a full term with a larger popular vote share since Lord Salisbury at the 1900 general election. In response to the November 2015 Paris attacks, Cameron secured the support of the House of Commons to extend air strikes against ISIS into Syria.

Cameron announcing his resignation as Prime Minister in the wake of the UK votes on EU membership. As promised in the election manifesto, Cameron set a date for a referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union and announced that he would be campaigning for Britain to remain within a "reformed EU" The terms of the UK's membership of the EU were re-negotiated, with agreement reached in February 2016. In the referendum of 23 June 2016, the British electorate voted in favors of leaving the European Union. On 24 June, a few hours after the results became known Cameron announced that he would resign the office of Prime Minister by the start of the Conservative Party Conference in October 2016. Very intense criticism followed the realization of just how much the referendum had split the country, with The Independent saying it was called to save Cameron's job and was an act of "indescribably selfish recklessness. In late July, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee was told that Cameron had refused to allow the Civil service to make plans for Brexit, a decision the committee described as "an act of gross negligence.  The Conservative Party leadership election was scheduled for 9 September and the new leader was expected to be in place by the autumn conference, set to begin on 2 October. On 11 July, following the withdrawal of Andrea Leadsom from the Conservative Party leadership election and the confirmation of Theresa May as the new leader of the Conservative Party, Cameron announced he would hold a final cabinet meeting on 12 July and then following a final Prime Minister's Questions submit his resignation to the Queen on the afternoon of 13 July. After his final Prime Minister's Questions, Cameron received a standing ovation from MPs; his final comment was, "I was the future once" a reference to his 2005 quip to Tony Blair, "he was the future once". Cameron then submitted his resignation to the Queen later that day. Although no longer serving as Prime Minister, Cameron originally stated that he would continue inside Parliament, on the Conservative backbenches. On 12 September however, Cameron announced that he was resigning his seat with immediate effect. He was succeeded as MP for Witney by fellow Conservative Robert Courts. The Washington Post described him as having "sped away without glancing back" once Theresa May had "vaulted herself out of the hurricane-strength political wreckage of Britain's vote to leave the European Union. In October 2016, Cameron became chairman of the National Citizen Service Patrons.

Johnson appeared poised to replace Cameron, but, in an abrupt turn of events, Johnson withdrew his name from consideration after he lost the crucial support of Justice Secretary Michael Gove who chose to run for leader himself. After successive votes by Conservative parliamentarians, Home Secretary Theresa May and Energy Minister Andrea Leadsom emerged from the five-candidate field as the finalists. They were to be put to a vote by all party members with the results to come in September, but, when Leadsom unexpectedly dropped out on July 11, the party’s 1922 Committee, which was steering the leadership contest, declared May the new leader, effective immediately. As a result, Cameron’s tenure as prime minister came to a close even sooner than expected. Following Cameron’s final cabinet meeting on July 12, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that across the cabinet there was “huge gratitude” for what Cameron had “achieved for the country and the way he’s changed the Conservative Party.” Cameron formally presented his resignation to the queen on July 13. On September 12, 2016, he also resigned from his seat in the House of Commons

In my view, the circumstances of my resignation as Prime Minister and the realities of modern politics make it very difficult to continue on the backbenches without the risk of becoming a diversion to the important decisions that lie ahead for my successor in Downing Street and the Government