The Plight of David Cameron

Pity the fate of front-line politicians. Masters of all that they survey, they go from the centre of the universe to last night's chip wrappings. Imagine it. Your views matter. Your hobby horses matter. And your decisions are among the few that only, truly matter. Then, it might be sudden but is often drawn out, all this is revoked and you are bumped down to observer status. If you're lucky you might end up fondly remembered, but more often your name is indelibly associated with failures or catastrophes of one sort or another. The life after then, of getting stuck on the outside looking in at what was once yours, is a sad time of reflection in the dwindling twilight.

Therefore only the hardest of hearts would fail to be moved by the plight of Dave, whose latest ruminations made all the papers today. We learn he wishes to rededicate his life to a resumption of public service. Good on him! I'm sure there are plenty of food banks and homeless shelters that would have his arm off. Quite literally in most cases. Alas, according to reports - subsequently denied - Dave had other things in mind. "I would very much like to return to front-line politics", our former PM declaimed, "and I should like to be foreign secretary".

Giving the media the run around is so much jolly japes. What's a washed up ex-leader of a declining power to do when one's memoirs didn't command the asking price, and one has just assembled a flash £25k shed? We all need a hobby. Unfortunately, Dave's story does have a ring of plausibility to it. We recall when Theresa May decanted George Osborne from Number 11 and then, almost over night, he manifested at the helm of the Evening Standard. Thanks to the largesse of Evgeny Lebedev (just what is it with Tories and Russian money?), Osborne has preserved some measure of staying politically relevant, even if it is but a simulacrum of the power he previously dispensed.

One can easily imagine Dave making a similar move. Readers might recall that his ambitions weren't driven by anything so quaint as "helping people" or "making a difference", but that he desired becoming Prime Minister because he thought he'd be "rather good at it". He has the same chutzpah as Osborne, the same unwarranted but effortless PPE confidence that he could glide into any situation and know what to do. Dave and Osborne typify the merry-go-round at senior management level across institutions and companies. One doesn't have to do detail (too much) as one set of meetings are much the same as the other, and if caught short an underling's briefing notes are always to hand. What matters are connections, and social and cultural capital they can bring to bear.

Thinking it through, could Dave make a comeback if he was so moved? His chances look sketchy, no doubt. In times past it was possible for politicians to peak, decline, and peak again. Churchill is the most celebrated example, achieving ministerial prominence, fading from view, moving into Number 10, moving out, and then back in again when Attlee unnecessarily parted with the keys in 1951. Harold Wilson managed a couple of spells at the top, and there is the ghastly example of Silvio Berlusconi, the man who refuses to go away. It's been done before, so it's not impossible, on paper. But c'mon, this is Dave, the PM whose idea of "being rather good at it" saw the poor thrown under the austerity bus, imperilled the 300 year old Act of Union, and gambled away EU membership to prevent a ridiculous, rag tag and bobtail outfit of "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists" from coming near to getting a handful of seats at Westminster. It stands to reason that there might be a few things standing in his way of getting a Foreign Office job.

Unfortunately, we can't count on good sense keeping Dave out of the way as this isn't the first time a return has got mooted. It wasn't very long ago when Theresa May allowed his name to be floated as her nomination for NATO general secretary. We're not going to see her do that again, but as her career threatens to go the way of Dave's and Osborne's what is there to stop a future Tory leader from ennobling him and letting him loose to raise more fresh hell and do more damage? Sadly, regrettably, I have a feeling Dave's time with British politics isn't quite yet over.