Episode 2386
David Cameron
Tue, 2023-Nov-14 13:33 UTC
Length - 4:43
Direct Link
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With 555,393 views on Monday, 13 November 2023 our article of the day is David Cameron.
David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs since 13 November 2023. He previously served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016, as Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016, and as Leader of the Opposition from 2005 to 2010, while serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Witney from 2001 to 2016. He identifies as a one-nation conservative and has been associated with both economically liberal and socially liberal policies.
Born in London to an upper-middle-class family, Cameron was educated at Heatherdown School, then Eton College, and Brasenose College, Oxford. From 1988 to 1993 he worked at the Conservative Research Department, latterly 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, and succeeded Howard in 2005. 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.
Following the 2010 general election, negotiations 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 global financial crisis; these involved a large deficit in government finances that his government sought to reduce through austerity measures. His administration passed the Health and Social Care Act and the Welfare Reform Act, which introduced large-scale changes to healthcare and welfare. It also enforced stricter immigration policies, introduced reforms to education and oversaw the 2012 London Olympics. Cameron's administration also privatised the Royal Mail and some other state assets, and legalised same-sex marriage in England and Wales.
Internationally, Cameron's government intervened militarily in the First Libyan Civil War and authorised the bombing of the Islamic State. Domestically, his government oversaw the referendum on voting reform and Scottish independence referendum, both of which confirmed Cameron's favoured outcome. When the Conservatives secured an unexpected majority in the 2015 general election, he remained as prime minister, this time leading a Conservative-only government. To fulfil a manifesto pledge, Cameron introduced a referendum on the UK's continuing membership of the EU in 2016. He supported the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign for the UK to remain in the European Union. Following the success of the Leave vote, Cameron resigned as prime minister and was succeeded in the 2016 Conservative Party leadership election by Theresa May, his Home Secretary. He served as president of Alzheimer's Research UK from 2017 to 2023. During the November 2023 Cabinet reshuffle, Rishi Sunak recommended a peerage be conferred upon Cameron, and appointed him Foreign Secretary. Cameron is the first former prime minister to serve in a ministerial post since Alec Douglas-Home in 1970. Cameron has been praised for modernising the Conservative Party and for decreasing the United Kingdom's national deficit. However, he has been criticised for his decision to hold the referendum on the UK's membership of the EU, which led to a period of political instability in the late 2010s. After leaving office, he was implicated in the Greensill scandal after lobbying government ministers and civil servants on behalf of Greensill Capital. In historical rankings of prime ministers of the United Kingdom, academics and journalists have ranked Cameron in the fourth and third quintiles, respectively.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 13:33 UTC on Tuesday, 14 November 2023.
For the full current version of the article, see David Cameron on Wikipedia.
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