What on earth happened to David Cameron?

As he sat in the shepherd’s hut, surrounded by piles of his unwanted memoirs, David Cameron could be forgiven for wondering how it had come to this. He was having to explain his contacts with the government,  his former colleagues and pals – on behalf of Greensill Capital, the financial services company. Lex Greensill, the firm’s Australian founder, had become a mate and when Cameron left Downing Street, Greensill offered him a job and some shares, too.

With the Sunday papers full of fresh revelations about his activities on behalf of Greensill – how he’d sent text messages to the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, and two other ministers and senior Treasury and No 10 officials and arranged a private drink with the Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, and Lex Greensill – Cameron thought about delving into his thick file of speeches, the ones he was particularly proud of and had served him well, but then thought better of it.

He would stick to that tried and tested formula of those in power for deflecting awkward questions: learning the lessons. For good measure, he would mix it with a bit of personal humility and sincerity – he was good at that, it always worked in the past.

So, after 1,500 words about how he was attracted to joining Greensill because it had come up with a system for helping smaller businesses access working capital, we got:

“However, I have reflected on this at length. There are important lessons to be learnt. As a former prime minister, I accept that communications with government need to be done through only the most formal of channels, so there can be no room for misinterpretation.

“There have been various charges levelled against me these past weeks, mainly that I made representations to the government on behalf of a company I worked for. I did.

“Not just because I thought it would benefit the company, but because I sincerely believed there would be a material benefit for UK businesses at a challenging time.

“That was, in large part, my reason for working for Greensill in the first place. I deeply regret that Greensill has gone into administration, but the central idea behind their key product – using modern technology and deep capital markets in order to help firms be better financed, to grow and create jobs – was a good one.”

That was a clever touch, the section about making representations, not because he thought they would benefit the company but out of national interest. Masterful. It was that brilliance that served him so well at Eton and Oxford, and in PR for Carlton Television. He still had it in him.

Whether anyone believed him was a different matter. That was his line, and he was sticking to it. Sincerely. Wonderful.

It would show Boris, who was thinking of holding an investigation into his behavior. The nerve. Boris!

As he headed off for Sunday lunch with Samantha and the children, Cameron was reminiscing. There was the speech that weasel journalists and Starmer and his colleagues had seized upon, the one from February 2010, at the University of East London. How did it go again?

“We all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisers for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way. In this party, we believe in competition, not cronyism.” And, “I believe that secret corporate lobbying, like the expenses scandal, goes to the heart of why people are so fed up with politics. It arouses people’s worst fears and suspicions about how our political system works.”

He shook his head at the memory. Bloody good stuff. It was lapped up. People voted for him in the 2010 general election because they believed he offered a new, cleaner brand of politics and Conservatism. In 2010 he’d delivered the first Tory general election victory since 1992. Okay, it was still 20 seats short of outright victory, but a win is a win. Marvelous.

There was also the scene-setter before that, in May 2009, to another university, the Open University in Milton Keynes. “Fixing Broken Politics”, it was called. Great title, smart. Was that his or Andy Coulson’s? You know, he couldn’t recall.

Then, he spoke of the need for fundamental reform. People were fed up with the drip-drip of revelations about MPs fiddling their expenses. He understood, he really did.

“Of course, the immediate trigger of the anger over expenses is the realisation of what some MPs have actually been doing with taxpayers’ money. But the fundamental cause is, I believe, something different.

“It is in fact the same thing that made people so angry about the bankers who got rich while they were bringing the economy to its knees. It’s the reason people are angry with the councils that fine them for putting their rubbish out on the wrong day. With the NHS managers who shut down a much-loved maternity unit. With the local officials who are super-efficient when it comes to chasing up your council tax bill, but super-useless when it comes to giving your child a place in a good school. It’s the reason so many innocent citizens now mistrust and even fear the police – the very people who should be protecting them… and why so many people increasingly feel that the state is their enemy not their ally.

“The anger, the suspicion and the cynicism – yes with politics and politicians, but with so much else besides… I believe they are the result of people’s slow but sure realisation that they have very little control over the world around them… and over much that determines whether or not they’ll live happy and fulfilling lives.”

It went down so well he made it his shtick. There was the press conference at St Stephen’s Club in October 2009. He was good that day – lots of convincing anger in his expression and voice:“Politicians have done things that are unethical and wrong. I don’t care if they were within the rules – they were wrong.”

Damn. He remembered that Sam was keen to watch that new documentary on Amazon Prime, The Dissident, about the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. He’d cover that.

“While visiting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in January 2020 to advise on their forthcoming chairmanship of the G20, I also – with Lex Greensill – met with a range of business and political leaders, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman… Greensill planned to open a new regional office in Riyadh as part of its international expansion and I wanted to assist in this effort. While in Saudi Arabia, I took the opportunity to raise concerns about human rights, as I always did when meeting the Saudi leadership when I was Prime Minister.”

Time for roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and some really sharp horseradish. Yum yum.