Cameron: Practically a Conservative. Elliott Francis Perry

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       SMITH SQUARE Conservative Research Department 1988–1992

      David Cameron’s political career began with a ‘judicious prodding’ from the Royal Household. Although he had applied for a number of management consultancy and banking jobs while at Oxford (but before he had taken his Finals), none of these came to fruition. With a first-class degree in PPE, previous experience as a Conservative MP’s researcher and impeccable Tory pedigree, he had every chance of success. But evidently it was decided that nothing should be left to chance when, in due course, he was invited to attend interviews at Conservative Central Office (CCO), the party’s London headquarters, then in Smith Square, Westminster. Applicants were seen first by the Research Department’s deputy director, Alistair Cooke, and then, if judged suitable, by its director, Robin Harris.

      Cooke recalls a curious episode on 15 June 1988, the day Cameron’s appointment fell due. ‘Shortly before David Cameron’s interview, the telephone rang. The voice announced that it was calling from Buckingham Palace. Its tone was distinctly grand. The person on the other end of the line said, “I understand that you are to see David Cameron. I’ve tried everything I can to dissuade him from wasting his time on politics, but I have failed. I am ringing to tell you that you are about to meet a truly remarkable young man.”’ Cooke adds, ‘I thought, “Why is this unknown person giving me this unsolicited testimonial?” if that is what it was: there was no attempt to persuade me either way, to take him or not to take him.’

      A call like that is bound to lodge in the mind. Indeed Cooke says he dined out on it endlessly, long before Cameron became well known. The story first surfaced publicly shortly after Cameron became leader when Harris was thought by some (erroneously, says Harris) to have suggested that the new Conservative leader owed his first position in politics, in part, to string-pulling. In any event, Cooke disagrees. He says he told Robin Harris about it at the time, and that it had no bearing on the outcome. ‘Clearly David was quite outstanding – one of the very best of all the young people I interviewed over the years – and needed no help from anyone to impress the people at Central Office. But that does not alter the fact that what the voice from the Palace told me was absolutely true.’

      So who was the mystery caller? It might be fair to assume that it was Captain Sir Alastair Aird, then Comptroller and later equerry to the Queen Mother and husband of Fiona Aird, Cameron’s godmother. That, indeed, was David Cameron’s own belief when the story first surfaced. But the suggestion is vehemently denied by the Airds. Lady Aird, having repudiated the suggestion, consulted her husband for confirmation and said: ‘Alastair has never ever made that sort of call. He was incredibly careful about being thought to have used his position or anything. It could not possibly have been Alastair. They’re hugely proscribed from doing anything political. I just know that it could not have been Alastair.’

      When this was put to David Cameron’s office, they suggested that perhaps the caller had been Sir Brian McGrath, a Peasemore neighbour and friend of Cameron’s parents who then worked as private secretary to Prince Philip. But he, too, though named as a referee for the job, denies it. ‘It wasn’t me,’ he says. ‘I don’t think they even called me, to ask me to vouch for his character and so on. I certainly didn’t initiate anything. He’s quite capable of standing on his own two feet without any help from me. One thing I’m certain of is that I didn’t ring Central Office.’ Frustratingly, the phantom string-puller has yet to be unmasked.

      Assuming the call wasn’t a hoax, the story illustrates, as if that were needed, how well connected Cameron is. But, tantalisingly, it fails to answer the question of how committed he was to going into politics when he left university. The mystery caller had said he was determined to enter politics, despite attempts to persuade him against it, yet in fact he had already applied for other jobs. At what point had this determination struck? Was it when prospective employers failed to detect an aptitude for knuckling down to a City career? He was also interviewed by the Economist but was turned down – mercifully, he says, as he is not by nature a journalist. He has said that he applied for CRD when he came across a brochure from the Oxford careers department in his pigeonhole. Some say he simply fell into the Conservative Party because, having applied to all the blue-chip merchant banks and management consultants (William Hague’s McKinsey’s among them), he had failed to find a job elsewhere.

      Robin Harris has no recollection of Cameron’s interview but thinks he would have asked him two standard questions. One, ‘Why do you think you are a Conservative?’ to assess ideological commitment, and the other, ‘What do you think of the Medium-Term Financial Strategy?’ to apply a little intellectual pressure. Even for those familiar with the rigours of one-to-one tutorials with Oxbridge dons, CRD interviews could be an intimidating experience. But Cameron, despite – rather than because of – the royal intervention, did well enough to be offered a position.

      When he first reported for duty at Smith Square on 26 September 1988 he was stepping on to an established fast-track to high political office. The list of former CRD staffers who have gone on to greatness is a long one. When Cameron was there, Michael Portillo was the most recent of its graduates to have СКАЧАТЬ