It’s ten years this month since legislation to legalise same-sex marriage was passed by parliament. So what better way to mark the occasion than a reception with the man who was Prime Minister at the time? David Cameron was on sparkling form last night at a drinks party hosted by the LGBT+ Conservatives – one of many such events being held, as Cameron was quick to note. ‘Isn’t it lovely to be at a Tory celebration? We haven’t had enough of those recently’ he quipped to the crowd. ‘I think gay marriage has now had more birthdays than a senior member of the royal family.’
Among the anecdotes that Cameron told was one about visiting the White House in March 2012 and being greeted by one of Barack’s Obama donors who urged him to press the-then President to make the case for same sex marriage too. ‘I remember saying “So you want this Conservative to tell that Democrat to go for gay marriage”? That was a great day, it was not going to get any better than that.’ The previous evening Cameron and Obama had gone to watch a basketball game in Ohio:
I think we got back onto Air Force One at about midnight which of course for me was five in the morning. I was flagging a bit and he [Obama] said “Would you like to have a sleep in my bed?” so he shows me to the nosecone of Air Force One and there is a bedroom and there is a bed. And on the bed there is a blanket with the crest of the president on, the eagle and everything else and he said “Go on, get on” so I lie on the bed, he pulls the blanket over me and he tucks me in. And as he did so, he said “I know David people are questioning the Special Relationship, but I’ll tell you one thing: Roosevelt never did this for Churchill.”
The former PM left the political stage seven years ago but he still retains the charm of old, as showed when he told the crowd about a long-standing staff member in No. 10 who thanked him for allowing him to marry his partner of 20 years. ‘When you’re Prime Minister you have no time to think,’ he reflected. ‘When you stop being Prime Minister, you have too much time to think.’
That moment has always stayed with him, unlike so many other in No. 10 like ‘sex scandals – I can’t remember any of them, probably because I wasn’t involved! Equal marriage, I remember every step of the journey, clear as day.’ Here’s to the next ten years.
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