British politics is a brutal and unsentimental place when it comes to departing prime ministers. After a few valedictory remarks at the despatch box and the odd tearful farewell, the PM heads off to Buckingham Palace to tender their formal resignation to the monarch. And that’s that – apart from the customary arrival of the Downing Street removal vans to clear away their belongings.
It is an unspoken rule that no one, most of all their successors in Downing Street, is particularly keen to welcome a former prime minister back to frontline politics. That is why David Cameron’s return to government as Foreign Secretary is such a shock. It is just not the done thing.
Sunak and Cameron have turned conventional Westminster thinking on its head – in a good way
Cameron, who led the country between 2010 and 2016, has been resurrected from the ranks of the politically undead in Rishi Sunak’s cabinet reshuffle.
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