Cameron Premiership in Review: In the end, there was no one left to hide behind

After six years as Prime Minister, David Cameron leaves office having lost the EU referendum argument not just in the country but within his own party. Photograph: Prime Minister David Cameron - official photograph by Number 10 (License) (Cropped)

David Cameron came into office at the head of Britain's first coalition government since the wartime National Government. The message, as he stood in the Rose Garden to begin his double act with Nick Clegg, was a promise of a different form of government (BBC, 2010). More open. Less overbearing.

Yet the laughs and relaxed atmosphere of the Rose Garden came to stand for other things over the course of Cameron's six years in office: a tendency to let others take the hits and an appearance of detachment from the painful realities of the recession and austerity programme that followed.

Cameron certainly rebuilt the Conservative Party as an electoral force and he made a stern effort to try and modernise it, often against much resistance (Hennessy, 2010; Grice, 2014). As PM, he clearly wanted to be remembered as a reformer (Hoskin, 2016).

But that ambition is likely to be overridden by the gap that has opened between Scotland and the rest of the UK - which with another referendum may result in a full division - and of course the EU referendum, that Cameron lost, and will have a long lasting and drastic impact on the future of the UK.

There have been positive reforms. The introduction of gay marriage is a stand out achievement, as Jeremy Corbyn stressed in David Cameron's last appearance at Prime Minister's Questions. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition was itself also a landmark moment for UK politics that until that point had been majoritarian and adversarial to a fault.

And yet even as the PM told the public that 'we're all in this together', part of a big society that government would support rather than direct from the centre, the twin impact of recession and austerity saw poverty deepen. The spread of food banks to help the homeless or those unable to afford food (Williams, 2015), the rise of welfare sanctions (Ashmore, 2015), and the continued rise in the cost of housing have made that promise seem hollow.

That attitude has been reinforced by policies like corporation tax being regularly slashed even as the welfare bill has been squeezed. It was also reinforced by his approach: 'flashman' as he was nicknamed, quick to dish out the put downs and ad hominem insults that made him appear arrogant and dismissive.

Cameron's time as PM was not short of scandals, from the appointment of Andy Coulson to his family being caught up in the Panama Papers revelations. But nothing ever seemed to stick to the now former Conservative leader. Not even NHS doctor's going out on dramatic strikes.

That is perhaps most starkly demonstrated by the way in which the Tories where the ones who benefited at the polls from all of the positives of the Coalition while their Liberal Democrat partners where electorally crushed, seemingly with blame for all of the negatives.

And there were always excuses. The previous Labour government received the main brunt of the Prime Minister's criticism, with economic problems usually prefaced with the work Conservatives were doing to make up for the 'mess' that Labour left (Watt, 2010).

Ultimately, Cameron's premiership comes to an end because he picked a fight on the EU referendum that he couldn't win and it is perhaps significant that it was a fight with the right-wing of his own party. As PM, Cameron's biggest challenge has always been wrestling with his own party rather than fending off the leaders of the other parties.

Even with the pain of austerity, the opposition has always been so divided that it is almost unsurprising that Cameron, with the help of his own party, had to be the orchestrator of his own downfall. Progressives will not to be too sad to see the end of his tenure. But the future after Cameron is uncertain.

Trying to moderate his party's position, Cameron rebuilt them as a political force. Without him at the helm, with the opposition divided, a question now hangs over what the new Tory leader will use that platform to pursue next.

References

'Rose garden was like the 'Dave and Nick Show''; on the BBC; 12 May 2010.

Patrick Hennessy's 'Moderniser David Cameron: I'm not for turning - David Cameron will declare that he will not retreat into the "Conservative comfort zone" and will carry on with his modernising crusade as he attempts to arrest his party's dip in fortunes'; in The Telegraph; 27 February 2010.

Andrew Grice's 'Exclusive: Chasing the Ukip vote could kill the Conservative Party, claims Tory moderniser - Lord Finkelstein tells conference that wooing Farage supporters risks alienating the young, minorities and voters in North'; in The Independent; 24 July 2014.

Peter Hoskin's 'Cameron has found consistency as a social reformer'; on Conservative Home; 12 February 2016.

Lee Williams' 'The sickening truth about food banks that the Tories don't want you to know: If a prison decided to implement a policy of punishing its inmates by cutting their food supply, it would be universally condemned as a human rights abuse'; in The Independent; 23 April 2015.

John Ashmore's 'Cameron defends benefits sanction regime: David Cameron this morning mounted a strong defence of the Government's benefits sanction regime, insisting it was "right" that payments are conditional on people making an effort to find work'; on Politics Home; 19 April 2015.

Nicholas Watt's 'David Cameron readies UK for debt pain as he blames Labour 'illusion': Interest will rise to £70bn a year as deficit hits £1.4tn - claims Darling refused to reveal extent of problem'; in The Guardian; 7 June 2010.