Is Cameron upstaging Sunak?

The logic behind Rishi Sunak’s decision to make David Cameron foreign secretary was that he would be a ‘big beast’ on the world stage and wouldn’t need much instruction. Six months on, that plan is going reasonably well, insofar as Cameron appears to be setting his own agenda. It also means he’s making his own mistakes. In February, his foray into US politics misfired when, in an article for the website the Hill, he appeared to lecture Americans about support for Ukraine, telling them not to show the ‘weakness displayed against Hitler’. A key Donald Trump ally, Marjorie Taylor Greene, responded that ‘David Cameron can kiss my ass’.

This week, the Foreign Secretary has been on something of an apology tour. The first stop was Mar-a-Lago in Florida to dine with Trump, whom Cameron had previously denounced as ‘protectionist, xenophobic, misogynistic’. ‘I’d love to have been there,’ said Nigel Farage of their dinner. ‘To see Cameron eating humble pie. Isn’t it funny: all these people around the world who’ve been rude and vile about Donald Trump. In the end, they all have to come and break bread.’

There was more humble pie to come when Cameron secured an audience with Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, and said in the press conference which followed that he had ‘no intention to lecture anybody or tell anybody what to do’. Not everyone has forgiven him. Mike Johnson, the most senior Republican in the House, failed to find time for a meeting.

Cameron had been positioning himself as the man who could convince Johnson to release more aid to Ukraine. ‘We need to get on the phone,’ he declared before his trip. ‘Or, in my case, go in person to see Speaker Johnson in the House of Representatives to get that supplemental through.’