Life after No. 10 is not what David Cameron was hoping for

It can be cruel, the way politics plays out. At the very moment George Osborne was telling the bemused staff of the London Evening Standard that his working life in politics had obscured a passionate desire to become a newspaper editor, a familiar figure could be seen in the fresh meat department of the Whole Foods supermarket almost directly underneath the paper’s Kensington newsroom.

That man was David Cameron, and inevitably someone with journalistic instincts spotted him, snapped him on her phone, and tweeted it.

We congratulate ourselves on the ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ nature of British politics. So it is a healthy sign that there is an informality about the man described by the Washington Speakers Bureau, as ‘one of the most prominent global influencers of the early 21st century’.

There was nevertheless a poignancy in the juxtaposition of Osborne cementing his position with a newspaper editorship while his former boss was still searching for a role.

‘The problem is that David can’t really fill his day,’ says someone who knows him well. An old friend, who now sees less of him than he did, adds: ‘Dave found he was really good at the mechanics of being Prime Minister, and loved almost every minute of it. Obviously it leaves a hole.’

After he left Downing Street at the age of 49 in 2016, Cameron had unrealistic expectations of the world beyond politics. ‘He would ring up mates and suggest a game of lunchtime tennis,’ recalls a friend. ‘I’m afraid he’d get the answer: “Sorry, can’t make it; I have a job.’’ ’

Perhaps because he was born into money, and then married into even more of it, Cameron has never appeared to worry too much about accumulating wealth. Another friend says he feels aggrieved that George Osborne is hoovering up more than his fair share of the potential earnings of deposed Cabinet members.