David William Donald Cameron was born on 9 October 1966 and is a British former politician who previously served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016.
157 Facts About David Cameron
2.
David Cameron identifies as a one-nation conservative, and has been associated with both economically liberal and socially liberal policies.
3.
David Cameron sought to rebrand the Conservatives, embracing an increasingly socially liberal position, and introducing the "A-List" to increase the number of female and minority ethnic Conservative MPs.
4.
David Cameron's premiership was marked by the ongoing effects of the global financial crisis; these involved a large deficit in government finances that his government sought to reduce through austerity measures.
5.
David Cameron's administration passed the Health and Social Care Act and the Welfare Reform Act, which introduced large-scale changes to healthcare and welfare.
6.
Internationally, David Cameron's government intervened militarily in the First Libyan Civil War and authorised the bombing of the Islamic State.
7.
David Cameron supported the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign for the UK to remain in the European Union.
8.
David Cameron has been the president of Alzheimer's Research UK since 2017.
9.
David Cameron has been praised for modernising the Conservative Party and for decreasing the United Kingdom's national deficit.
10.
David William Donald Cameron was born on 9 October 1966 in Marylebone, London, and raised at Peasemore in Berkshire.
11.
David Cameron's siblings comprise of two sisters and an elder brother, Alexander Cameron KC, a barrister, who died of cancer.
12.
David Cameron is the younger son of Ian Donald Cameron a stockbroker, and his wife Mary Fleur, a retired Justice of the Peace and a daughter of Sir William Mount, 2nd Baronet.
13.
David Cameron's father, Ian, was born at Blairmore House near Huntly, Aberdeenshire, and died near Toulon, France, on 8 September 2010; Ian was born with both legs deformed, and underwent repeated operations to correct this.
14.
David Cameron admitted the offence and had not been involved in selling drugs, so he was not expelled; instead he was fined, prevented from leaving the school grounds, and given a "Georgic".
15.
David Cameron passed twelve O-Levels and then three A-levels: History of art; History, in which he was taught by Michael Kidson; and Economics with Politics.
16.
David Cameron obtained three 'A' grades and a '1' grade in the Scholarship Level exam in Economics and Politics.
17.
David Cameron was later told by one of his professors that it was "definitely an attempt" by the KGB to recruit him.
18.
In October 1985, David Cameron began his Bachelor of Arts course in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Brasenose College, Oxford.
19.
David Cameron would be integrating them with the way the British political system is put together.
20.
David Cameron could have lectured me on it, and I would have sat there and taken notes.
21.
David Cameron graduated in 1988 with a first-class honours BA degree.
22.
In 1991, David Cameron was seconded to Downing Street to work on briefing John Major for the then twice-weekly sessions of Prime Minister's Questions.
23.
David Cameron 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.
24.
However, David Cameron lost to Jonathan Hill, who was appointed in March 1992.
25.
David Cameron headed the economic section; it was while working on this campaign that David Cameron first worked closely with and befriended Steve Hilton, who was later to become Director of Strategy during his party leadership.
26.
The strain of getting up at 04:45 every day was reported to have led David Cameron to decide to leave politics in favour of journalism.
27.
The Conservatives' unexpected success in the 1992 election led David Cameron to hit back at older party members who had criticised 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.
28.
David Cameron revealed he had led other members of the team across Smith Square to jeer at Transport House, the former Labour headquarters.
29.
David Cameron was rewarded with a promotion to Special Adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont.
30.
David 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.
31.
At the 1992 Conservative Party conference, David 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.
32.
Later that month, David 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's contribution to the economic crisis.
33.
Taxes needed to be raised in the 1993 Budget, and David Cameron fed the options Lamont was considering through to Conservative Campaign Headquarters for their political acceptability to be assessed.
34.
However, Lamont's unpopularity did not necessarily affect David Cameron, who was considered as a potential "kamikaze" candidate for the Newbury by-election, which includes the area where he grew up.
35.
Lamont was sacked at the end of May 1993, and decided not to write the usual letter of resignation; David Cameron was given the responsibility to issue to the press a statement of self-justification.
36.
At the beginning of September 1993, David Cameron applied to go on Conservative Central Office's list of prospective parliamentary candidates.
37.
David Cameron was much more socially liberal than Howard but enjoyed working for him.
38.
In defending Sandra Howard and insisting that she made no such proposal, the journalist Bruce Anderson wrote that David Cameron had proposed a much shorter definition on prison catering which revolved around the phrase "balanced diet", and that Lewis had written thanking David Cameron for a valuable contribution.
39.
In July 1994, David Cameron left his role as Special Adviser to work as the Director of Corporate Affairs at Carlton Communications.
40.
David Cameron left Carlton to run for Parliament in 1997, returning to his job after his defeat.
41.
In 1997, David 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.
42.
David 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.
43.
David Cameron was reported to have missed out on selection for Ashford in December 1994, after failing to get to the selection meeting as a result of train delays.
44.
In January 1996, when two shortlisted contenders dropped out, David Cameron was interviewed and subsequently selected for Stafford, a constituency revised in boundary changes, which was projected to have a Conservative majority.
45.
At the 1996 Conservative Party Conference, David Cameron called for tax cuts in the forthcoming Budget to be targeted at the low-paid and to "small businesses where people took money out of their own pockets to put into companies to keep them going".
46.
When writing his election address, David Cameron made his own opposition to British membership of the single European currency clear, pledging not to support it.
47.
David Cameron campaigned using the claim that a Labour government would increase the cost of a pint of beer by 24p; however, the Labour candidate, David Kidney, portrayed Cameron as "a right-wing Tory".
48.
David Cameron tried for the Kensington and Chelsea seat after the death of Alan Clark, but did not make the shortlist.
49.
David Cameron was in the final two but narrowly lost at Wealden in March 2000, a loss ascribed by Samantha Cameron to his lack of spontaneity when speaking.
50.
On 4 April 2000, David Cameron was selected as PPC for Witney in Oxfordshire.
51.
David Cameron, advised in his strategy by friend Catherine Fall, put a great deal of effort into "nursing" his potential constituency, turning up at social functions, and attacking Woodward for changing his mind on fox hunting to support a ban.
52.
David Cameron proposed that the Committee launch an inquiry into the law on drugs, and urged the consideration of "radical options".
53.
David Cameron endorsed Iain Duncan Smith in the 2001 Conservative Party leadership election and organised an event in Witney for party supporters to hear John Bercow speaking for him.
54.
David Cameron determinedly attempted to increase his public visibility, offering quotations on matters of public controversy.
55.
David Cameron 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.
56.
The next week, David 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.
57.
In June 2003, David Cameron was appointed a shadow minister in the Privy Council Office as a deputy to Eric Forth, then Shadow Leader of the House.
58.
David Cameron was appointed Opposition frontbench local government spokesman in 2004, before being promoted to the Shadow Cabinet that June as head of policy co-ordination.
59.
David Cameron announced on 29 September 2005 that he would be a candidate.
60.
David Cameron's campaign did not gain wide support until his speech, delivered without notes, at the 2005 Conservative party conference.
61.
The next stage of the election process, between Davis and David Cameron, was a vote open to the entire party membership.
62.
David Cameron was accused of paying excessive attention to appearance: ITV News broadcast footage from the 2006 Conservative Party Conference in Bournemouth showing him wearing four different sets of clothes within a few hours.
63.
Quentin Davies MP, who defected from the Conservatives to Labour on 26 June 2007, branded him "superficial, unreliable and [with] an apparent lack of any clear convictions" and stated that David Cameron had turned the Conservative Party's mission into a "PR agenda".
64.
Traditionalist conservative columnist and author Peter Hitchens wrote, "Mr David Cameron has abandoned the last significant difference between his party and the established left", by embracing social liberalism.
65.
The Daily Telegraph correspondent and blogger Gerald Warner was particularly scathing about David Cameron's leadership, saying that it alienated traditionalist conservative elements from the Conservative Party.
66.
Former leader William Hague was appointed to the Foreign Affairs brief, while both George Osborne and David Cameron Davis were retained, as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer and Shadow Home Secretary respectively.
67.
Once elected David Cameron began discussions with right-wing and Eurosceptic 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.
68.
David Cameron attended a gathering at Warsaw's Palladium cinema celebrating the foundation of the alliance.
69.
In forming the caucus, which had 54 MEPs drawn from eight of the 27 EU member states, David 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.
70.
David Cameron was criticised by Labour MP Peter Hain, himself an anti-apartheid campaigner.
71.
At the launch of the Conservative Party's education manifesto in January 2010, David Cameron declared an admiration for the "brazenly elite" approach to education of countries such as Singapore and South Korea and expressed a desire to "elevate the status of teaching in our country".
72.
David Cameron suggested the adoption of more stringent criteria for entry to teaching and offered repayment of the loans of maths and science graduates obtaining first or 2.1 degrees from "good" universities.
73.
David Cameron said that doing things differently would not have saved the taxpayer any money, as he was paying more on mortgage interest than he was able to reclaim as expenses anyway He spoke out in favour of laws giving voters the power to "recall" or "sack" MPs accused of wrongdoing.
74.
The 2010 general election resulted in the Conservatives, led by David Cameron, winning the largest number of seats.
75.
At age 43, David Cameron became the youngest prime minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812, beating the record previously set by Tony Blair in May 1997.
76.
In June 2010 David Cameron described the economic situation as he came to power as "even worse than we thought" and warned of "difficult decisions" to be made over spending cuts.
77.
In December 2010, David Cameron attended a meeting with FIFA vice-president Chung Mong-joon in which a vote-trading deal for the right to host the 2018 World Cup in England was discussed.
78.
David Cameron agreed to holding the 2014 Scottish independence referendum and eliminated the "devomax" option from the ballot for a straight out yes or no vote.
79.
David Cameron had 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.
80.
David Cameron 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.
81.
David Cameron said immigration from outside the EU should be subject to annual limits.
82.
In 2014, David Cameron dismissed warnings that his cuts to the UK defence budget had left it less than a "first class-player in terms of defence" and no longer a "full partner" to the United States.
83.
David Cameron condemned the violence used against anti-Gaddafi protesters at the beginning of the Libyan Civil War After weeks of lobbying by the UK and its allies, on 17 March 2011 the United Nations Security Council approved a no-fly zone to prevent government forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on anti-Gaddafi rebels.
84.
David Cameron said he was "proud" of the role United Kingdom played in the overthrow of Gaddafi's government.
85.
US President Barack Obama acknowledged there had been issues with following up the conflict planning, commenting in an interview with The Atlantic magazine that David Cameron had allowed himself to be "distracted by a range of other things".
86.
In January 2015, David Cameron travelled to the Saudi capital Riyadh to pay his respects following the death of the nation's King Abdullah.
87.
In 2015, David Cameron's government announced "firm political support" for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen against the Shi'a Houthis, re-supplying the Saudi military with weapons and providing them with training.
88.
David Cameron reiterated calls for an independent investigation into the alleged war crimes during the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War.
89.
David Cameron stated that, if this investigation was not completed by March 2014, he would press for an independent international inquiry.
90.
David Cameron was mobbed by demonstrators, mostly women, seeking his assistance in tracing missing relatives.
91.
The David Cameron government declined to formally recognise the Ottoman Empire's massacres of Armenians as a "genocide".
92.
David Cameron said he wanted to reaffirm his "unshakable" belief in Israel within the same message.
93.
David Cameron voiced his opposition to the Goldstone Report, claiming it had been biased against Israel and not enough blame had been placed on Hamas.
94.
In March 2014, during his first visit to Israel as prime minister, David Cameron addressed Israel's Knesset in Jerusalem, where he offered his full support for peace efforts between Israelis and Palestinians, hoping a two-state solution might be achieved.
95.
David Cameron promised that, before expanding UK air strikes and ground support to include IS units in Syria, he would seek parliamentary approval.
96.
In July 2015, a Freedom of Information request by Reprieve revealed that, without the knowledge of UK parliamentarians, RAF pilots had, in fact, been bombing targets in Syria, and that David Cameron knew of this.
97.
On 7 May 2015, David Cameron was re-elected UK prime minister with a majority in the Commons.
98.
David 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.
99.
On 24 June, a few hours after the results became known, David Cameron announced that he would resign the office of prime minister by the start of the Conservative Party Conference in October 2016.
100.
David Cameron then submitted his resignation to the Queen later that day.
101.
David Cameron was succeeded as MP for Witney by fellow Conservative Robert Courts.
102.
David Cameron described himself in December 2005 as a "modern compassionate conservative" and spoke of a need for a new style of politics, saying that he was "fed up with the Punch and Judy politics of Westminster".
103.
David Cameron has urged politicians to concentrate more on improving people's happiness and "general well-being", instead of focusing solely on "financial wealth".
104.
David Cameron said that he believed in "spreading freedom and democracy, and supporting humanitarian intervention" in cases such as the genocide in Darfur, Sudan.
105.
Whilst urging members of his party to support the coalition's proposals for same-sex marriage, David 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.
106.
In 2012, David Cameron publicly apologised 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".
107.
In 2006 David Cameron described poverty as a "moral disgrace" and promised to tackle relative poverty.
108.
In 2007 David Cameron promised, "We can make British poverty history, and we will make British poverty history".
109.
David Cameron denied that austerity had contributed to the 2011 England riots, instead blaming street gangs and opportunistic looters.
110.
David Cameron is recorded by Hansard as having voted against same-sex adoption rights in 2002, but he denies this, claiming he abstained from the three-line whip imposed on him by his party.
111.
However, David Cameron supported commitment for gay couples in a 2005 speech, and in October 2011 urged Conservative MPs to support gay marriage.
112.
David Cameron stated that he wanted to give religious groups the ability to host gay marriage ceremonies, and that he did not want to exclude gay people from a "great institution".
113.
David Cameron subsequently appointed two women who had voted against same-sex marriage as ministers in the Government Equalities Office, Nicky Morgan and Caroline Dinenage following the 2015 general election.
114.
In 2009 David Cameron said "the restoration of family values and a new commitment to economic and social responsibility" were "key to repairing 'broken Britain'".
115.
David Cameron criticised Gordon Brown for being "an analogue politician in a digital age" and referred to him as "the roadblock to reform".
116.
David Cameron said that John Prescott "clearly looks a fool" after Prescott's personal indiscretions were revealed in spring 2006, and wondered if the Deputy Prime Minister had broken the ministerial code.
117.
In January 2007, David Cameron made a speech in which he described extremist Islamic organisations and the British National Party as "mirror images" to each other, both preaching "creeds of pure hatred".
118.
David Cameron is listed as being a supporter of Unite Against Fascism.
119.
David Cameron was seen encouraging Conservative MPs to join the standing ovation given to Tony Blair at the end of his last Prime Minister's Question Time; he had paid tribute to the "huge efforts" Blair had made and said Blair had "considerable achievements to his credit, whether it is peace in Northern Ireland or his work in the developing world, which will endure".
120.
In September 2015, after the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, David Cameron called the party a "threat" to British national and economic security, on the basis of Corbyn's defence and fiscal policies.
121.
David Cameron supported a motion brought by the SNP and Plaid Cymru in 2006 calling for an inquiry into the government's conduct of the Iraq war.
122.
David Cameron repeatedly called for the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war to conclude and publish its findings, saying "People want to know the truth".
123.
In October 2012, as Narendra Modi rose to prominence in India, the UK rescinded its boycott of the then-Gujarat state Chief Minister over religious riots in Gujarat in 2002 that left more than 2,000 dead, and in November 2013, David Cameron commented that he was "open" to meeting Modi.
124.
Modi was later elected as prime minister in a landslide majority, leading to David Cameron calling Modi and congratulating him on the "election success", one of the first Western leaders to do so.
125.
Later that year, Conservative MP Brian Binley openly said that David Cameron's leadership was like being a "maid" to the Liberal Democrats, and accused him of leading the party to defeat.
126.
In 2007 David Cameron appointed Andy Coulson, former editor of the News of the World, as his director of communications.
127.
In 2015 Ashcroft released Call Me Dave, an unauthorised biography of David Cameron written with journalist Isabel Oakeshott, which attracted significant media attention for various lurid allegations about David Cameron's time at university.
128.
The book includes an anonymous anecdote about David Cameron, now referred to as Piggate, in which he allegedly inserted his penis into a dead pig's head.
129.
Many commentators have described the accusations as a "revenge job" by Ashcroft, who was not offered a senior role in government when David Cameron came to power in 2010.
130.
David Cameron later went on to deny these allegations and stated that Ashcroft's reasons for writing the book were clear and the public could see clearly through it.
131.
An ICM poll in September 2007 saw David Cameron rated the least popular of the three main party leaders.
132.
In October 2016, David Cameron became chairman of the National Citizen Service Patrons.
133.
David Cameron maintained a low profile following his resignation as prime minister and the subsequent Brexit negotiations.
134.
In January 2019, following Theresa May's defeat in the House of Commons over her draft withdrawal agreement, David Cameron gave a rare interview to reporters outside his house in Notting Hill, saying he backed May's Brexit deal with the EU and did not regret calling the 2016 referendum.
135.
David Cameron confessed "Every single day I think about it, and the fact that we lost, and the consequences, and the things that could have been done differently, and I worry desperately".
136.
In September 2020, David Cameron became the fifth former prime minister to criticise the UK Internal Market Bill, over which he said he had "misgivings".
137.
On 19 September 2019, David Cameron published a memoir, For the Record, through HarperCollins.
138.
In 2018, David Cameron became an advisor to Greensill Capital and held share options in the company reportedly worth as much as $60 million as well as being paid over $1 million each year for 25 days work per year.
139.
In 2019, David Cameron arranged for a private meeting with Lex Greensill and Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock; under Hancock, several NHS trusts went on to use Greensill Capital's Earnd app.
140.
In 2020, a few months before Greensill Capital collapsed, David Cameron lobbied the government to bend the rules to allow it to receive Covid Corporate Financing Facility loans.
141.
David Cameron sent several text messages to Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, who ultimately declined to help Greensill; Cameron held ten virtual meetings with permanent secretaries Tom Scholar and Charles Roxburgh to try to obtain money for Greensill.
142.
In January 2023, David Cameron was assigned to teach politics in a three-week course at New York University Abu Dhabi.
143.
David Cameron was to lecture students on "practising politics and government in the age of disruption", which included topics like the Ukraine war and migration crisis.
144.
David Cameron later stated through his aides that he did not like the special that he cameoed in, and that he had the "utmost respect" for the people of India.
145.
David Cameron was portrayed by comedian Jon Culshaw in ITV's satirical sketch show Newzoids, and by Mark Dexter in the Channel 4 television films Coalition and Brexit: The Uncivil War.
146.
David Cameron is married to Samantha David Cameron, the daughter of Sir Reginald Sheffield, 8th Baronet, and Annabel Lucy Veronica Jones.
147.
David Cameron took paternity leave when Arthur was born, and this decision received broad coverage.
148.
David Cameron was born at the Royal Cornwall Hospital on 24 August 2010, three weeks prematurely, while the family was on holiday in Cornwall.
149.
David Cameron's third given name, Endellion, is taken from the village of St Endellion near where the Camerons were holidaying.
150.
On 17 September 2010, David Cameron attended a private ceremony for the funeral of his father in Berkshire, which prevented him from hearing the address of Pope Benedict XVI in Westminster Hall, an occasion he would otherwise have attended.
151.
Ian David Cameron, who had worked as a stockbroker in the City of London, used multimillion-pound investment funds based in offshore tax havens, such as Jersey, Panama City, and Geneva, to increase the family wealth.
152.
David Cameron argued that the fund was set up in Panama so that people who wanted to invest in dollar-denominated shares and companies could do so, and because full UK tax was paid on all profits he made there was no impropriety.
153.
In 2009, the New Statesman estimated his wealth at, adding that David Cameron is expected to inherit "million-pound legacies" from both sides of his family.
154.
David Cameron's Conservative Party spokesperson subsequently said that this was a regular arrangement for Cameron at the time.
155.
David Cameron is an occasional jogger and in 2009 raised funds for charities by taking part in the Oxford 5K and the Great Brook Run.
156.
David Cameron is a keen cricket fan and has appeared on Test Match Special.
157.
David Cameron viewed Britain as a "Christian country" and aimed to put faith back into politics.