Oh fickle fashion. The Bullingdon Club is struggling to attract members, it is reported by the Telegraph. The Oxford undergraduate drinking society was once deemed an elite club when written about by the British media (although most people one encounters who went to the university involved seem to view membership of the Bullingdon with considerable suspicion). Whatever, it is now said to be struggling to attract members. Years of negative publicity, involving numerous plays and films, and the constant citing of David Cameron, Boris Johnson and George Osborne as alumni, may have put off youngsters. Being sick, smashing up restaurants and pretending to be in Brideshead Revisted is a very 1980s look and there is less call for it these days.

How poignant though that the the news of the Bullingdon’s alleged recruitment troubles should break on the day that David Cameron announces that he is standing down as Conservative MP for Witney, triggering a by-election and a mad scramble for the seat from Tories eager to get their hands on that ultra-safe Tory constituency. Stand aside or prepare to be crushed in the rush. Cameron had a majority of 25,155 at the 2015 general election.

Cameron said he had thought long and hard about his decision:

“It isn’t really possible to be a proper backbench MP as a former prime minister. I think everything you do would become a big distraction and a big diversion for what the government needs to do for our country. I support Theresa May, I think she’s got off to a great start, I think she can be a strong Prime Minister for our country.”

Hmmm… At the risk of alienating Remainer friends and readers who have not forgiven Cameron for cocking up Britain’s membership of the EU and the subsequent referendum, I say that his departure is a great shame.

(Cue howls of protest.)

It is being said on the right that Cameron was a will-o’-the-wisp character, a leader who left no impression. On the left he was a smooth-faced vandal who set about the public services with glee and wrought disaster. He cannot have been both of those things, and indeed he was neither.

David Cameron repositioned his party, too much for the tastes of some Conservatives, and with insufficient care and attention at key moments. But anyone who lived through the late 1990s and early 2000s with their brain switched on realises that the Tories had to change to stand a chance. In office he did not embarrass his country on the world stage, unless you count losing the EU referendum as a national embarrassment (which I don’t).

Plenty of those who encountered Cameron say they found him standoffish. That was never my experience at all, despite me being disputatious and sometimes downright objectionable about him in print for years.

I regard him as a decent, good man who served his country well and maintained a sense of humour and proper perspective. He didn’t go mad in office, which is quite a distinction in the modern era. And in office he looked out for friends – outside politics, I mean – who someone lesser would simply have dropped in the melee.

The shame is that with Brexit coming we could have done with a move away from the modern trend in which politicians quit as soon as they leave office. During the transition he could never have returned to a major office of state, but why not five years or so down the line as Foreign Secretary? It will not happen now. Cameron will go off and have – deservedly so – a very nice time, with Samantha Cameron starting a business (a label) and Cameron strolling to the pub and doing some good works mixed in with a bit of light but well-paid globetrotting.

Once all the shouting from partisans and journalists dies down after his departure, what will be his legacy when we get used to the idea that Brexit is a fact of life? I suspect that eventually his qualities – his calmness, his rationality, his civic-minded Englishness – will mean he is viewed with a good deal more respect than his two predecessors Blair and Brown seem to be.