David Cameron

David Cameron was prime minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and leader of the Conservative Party from 2005, and his premiership is defined by two referendums, one he won and one he did not. Educated at Eton and Oxford, he entered Parliament for Witney in 2001 and took the party leadership four years later on a platform of modernisation, describing himself as a one-nation conservative. The 2010 election produced no majority and he formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, the first peacetime coalition since the 1930s. His government's central policy was austerity: sustained reductions in public spending intended to close the deficit left by the financial crisis, which remain the most contested part of his record. He legislated for same-sex marriage in 2013 against opposition from much of his own party. In 2014 he agreed to a referendum on Scottish independence and campaigned successfully for the union, winning by fifty-five per cent to forty-five. Having won an outright majority in 2015, he honoured a manifesto commitment to hold a referendum on membership of the European Union, calculating that a renegotiation with Brussels followed by a public vote would settle the question within his party. It did the opposite. The vote on 23 June 2016 went to Leave by fifty-two per cent to forty-eight, and he resigned the following morning. He returned unexpectedly in November 2023, elevated to the House of Lords to serve as foreign secretary under Rishi Sunak until the government lost office in July 2024.

• Lived: 1966 CE – ?
• Nationality: British
• Roles: head_of_government, politician