You may be cursing David Cameron as he prepares to leave office. Perhaps you are the Queen and have had your holiday in Scotland interrupted. Perhaps you are a Remain voter who blames him for holding the EU referendum in the first place, and then for losing it. Perhaps you are a moderate Leave voter who never expected to win and realises now that you rather liked David Cameron all along and do not want him to abandon his country to what comes next. Perhaps you are a Remainer or a Leaver simply unimpressed that he did not have a plan for losing, although the responsibility there surely lies more with the Leavers who won without a plan for what happened if they won.
Whatever your view, unless you are a Corbynista, a class war campaigner or a particularly right-wing Tory MP disappointed that Andrea Leadsom had to withdraw, surely we can all agree that when all is said and done David Cameron is a pretty top bloke?
Why do I say that? He’s not mad, or been driven mad in office, like some of his predecessors. He has a good sense of humour and he has been a fine public servant and custodian of this country, if you overlook the calling and losing the referendum bit.
I for one like him and wish him well, even if I have criticised him down the years. He took his party back to government, beat Alex Salmond in the Scottish referendum, won an election in 2015 and never embarrassed his country abroad, apart from the losing the referendum bit.
I am, then, delighted to have gained exclusive access to David Cameron’s plan for Brexit and the aftermath. It appears to be pretty “broad brush” and there isn’t much policy detail, but it looks like the plan of someone who knows what he’s about. Here it is:
1) Have a pint.
2) Initially resist calls for a second pint, but then have another pint anyway.
3) Make nosies about having to get home for supper, and then say oh go on just another half, oh ok you don’t buy halves, one more pint cannot hurt.
4) Walk home through country lanes. Stop on the way to look at the view across the fields.
5) Arrive home. Have a snooze before dinner.
6) Make difficult policy choice: claret or burgundy? Put this out to consultation. Compromise with something good from the Rhone.
7) Eat dinner. Enjoy talking to wife and children. Commend cook.
8) Watch some comedy on television, otherwise known as the Labour party leadership contest on the BBC News Channel.
9) Turn in. Sleep soundly.
10) Repeat – interrupted by some valuable charity work, memoir-writing, lunches, deer-stalking and support of Samantha Cameron in her business endeavours – for the next thirty years.