FOR RECORD EB

David Cameron

• Publisher: William Collins
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780008378325
• eBook ISBN: 9780008239305
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

'The political memoir of the decade' Sunday Times

The referendum on Britain's membership of the EU is one of the most controversial political events of our times. For the first time, the man who called that vote talks about the decision and its origins, as well as giving a candid account of his time at the top of British politics.

David Cameron was Conservative Party leader during the largest financial crash in living memory. The Arab Spring and the Eurozone crisis both started during his first year as prime minister. The backdrop to his time in office included the advent of ISIS, surging migration and a rapidly changing EU.

Here he talks about how he confronted those challenges, from modernising a party that had suffered three successive electoral defeats to forming the first coalition government for seventy years. He sets out how he helped turn around Britain's economy, implementing a modern, compassionate agenda that included education and welfare reform, the legalisation of gay marriage, the referendum on Scottish independence and world-leading environmental policies.

David Cameron is searingly honest about the key players from his time in politics. And he is frank about himself – the things he got right and the things he got wrong. He opens up about family life too, including the tragic loss of his eldest son.

We learn why he kept Britain's promise on overseas aid spending and what it was like to commit British troops to conflicts in Libya, Iraq and Syria. He sets out how he won the first outright Conservative majority in nearly a quarter of a century, and describes the events leading up to the EU referendum, the renegotiation, the campaign – and his thoughts on it all today.

It is the most compelling record yet of what it's like to lead in modern times and to live behind the most famous door in the world.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Foreword
• 1 Five Days in May
• 2 A Berkshire Boy
• 3 Eton, Oxford … and the Soviet Union
• 4 Getting Started
• 5 Samantha
• 6 Into Parliament
• 7 Our Darling Ivan
• 8 Men or Mice?
• 9 Hoodies and Huskies
• 10 Cliff Edge, Collapse and Scandal
• 11 Going to the Polls
• 12 Cabinet Making
• 13 Special Relationships
• 14 Afghanistan and the Armed Forces
• 15 Budgets and Banks
• 16 Nos 10 and 11 – Neighbours, Friends and Families
• 17 Progressive Conservatism in Practice
• 18 Success and Failure
• 19 Party and Parliament
• 20 Leveson
• 21 Libya and the Arab Spring
• 22 Referendum and Riots
• 23 Better Together
• 24 Treaties and Treadmills
• 25 Omnishambles
• 26 Coalition and Other Blues
• 27 Wedding Rings, Olympic Rings
• 28 Resignations and Reshuffles
• 29 Bloomberg
• 30 The Gravest Threat
• 31 Sticking to ‘Plan A’
• 32 Love is Love
• 33 A Slow-Moving Tragedy
• 34 Leading for the Long Term
• 35 A Distinctive Foreign Policy
• 36 The Long Road to 2015
• 37 Junckernaut
• 38 A ‘Small Island’ in a Small World
• 39 Back to Iraq
• 40 Scotland Remains
• 41 The Sweetest Victory
• 42 A Conservative Future?
• 43 Rolling Back the Islamic State
• 44 Trouble Ahead
• 45 Renegotiation
• 46 Referendum
• 47 The End
• Picture Section
• Index
• About the Author