How is history going to treat David Cameron? Making snap judgments on a prime minister’s long-term legacy can be a dangerous business. When Tony Blair was cheered out of the Commons he looked set for a dignified, if lucrative, afterlife. It’s proved far more lucrative than anyone could have imagined, but barely 10 years on there’s not much dignity left. Blair is being fitted out for the role of statesman as pariah. On the other hand, some prime ministers have just the reputation their contemporaries might have anticipated. Did anyone wave William Gladstone out of the Commons muttering under their breath that history would cut him down to size? He looms as large as ever. Did anyone say goodbye to Anthony Eden thinking that his real accomplishments would eventually earn their due? Suez was never going to get out of the way, and it hasn’t. Sometimes, what you see is what you get.
The trouble with Cameron is that it’s possible to see his time in office from two very different points of view. From the perspective of the country at large, his legacy looks weighed down with negatives. The UK is as divided as it has been in its modern history, with Scotland only locked in by economic blackmail to a union that lacks political legitimacy. Brexit revealed a nation split by generation, education and region, with neither side able to comprehend the concerns of the other. The political system is broken but seemingly impossible to reform. The economic recovery is fragile and vulnerable to future shocks. The country’s foreign policy is in tatters, scarred by military misadventures in Libya (a disaster for which a recent select committee singled Cameron out for particular blame) diplomatic blundering over Syria and no plan B for Britain’s future relationship with Europe. Cameron has left his successors an almighty mess.