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victory. It was a rare political act at university. While future Tory stars like Michael Gove, Boris Johnson, Mark Field, Ed Llewellyn and Ed Vaizey threw themselves into student politics, either at the Oxford Union or in the Oxford University Conservative Association, Cameron stayed on the sidelines, rather as he had at Eton. He would go along to hear a big-name speaker, but he took little part. His non-participation irks some fellow Tories. One contemporary, who remains active in politics, said: ‘You might think it a little strange that at the time – the height of Thatcherism, when just a year before there had been busloads of left-wing students going to the miners’ strike – he wasn’t galvanised.’ Cameron, as an implicit, deeply tribal Tory, felt little need to prove he was a Conservative. Another student politician contemporary says that Cameron was ‘too cool for school’. Steve Rathbone says he and Cameron shared a distaste for serious political discourse, particularly with opponents. ‘The trouble with some of the lefties was not that they were left wing – that was fine – but that they were earnest and humourless. They were too po-faced and didn’t know when to park their ideology outside. Dave and I did use to bait them a bit about that.’

      That Cameron was not active in student politics is not to say that he did not have a definite view. ‘Dave’s politics were very much centrist Tory,’ says Rathbone. ‘He was very mistrustful of the Monday Club types who were always banging on about how Mandela [then still in prison] was a terrorist.’ Later Rathbone, as the elected president of Brasenose Junior Common Room (JCR), had to escort John Carlisle of the Monday Club into the college. ‘Neither of us had any sympathy with Carlisle’s views and I didn’t like the guy, but there was a student demo about it, with a tangible level of hatred against him, spit flying and everything. It was really unpleasant, much worse than the standard sort of student demo. Dave was flat against that sort of thing.’

      While David Cameron supported the right of Carlisle to speak – against the opposition of his friend Andrew Feldman – he was at least consistent in his libertarianism. In March 1987 he caused some unhappiness among those who felt he was not pulling his weight ideologically when, during one of his generally passive encounters with the Union, he supported the decision to allow Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams to speak there. Cameron’s view was that he should be allowed to have his say and that his audience should be able to make an informed judgement, in favour or against. He tried this line on his tutor Vernon Bogdanor, who disagreed, saying that Sinn Fein’s relationship with the IRA was unhealthily close and that the normal democratic rules should not apply. Having heard Adams speak, Cameron told a friend that he felt ‘grubby’ about listening to the Northern Irishman, and that Bogdanor had been right.

      Academically, Vernon Bogdanor would have been an ideal person to stimulate Cameron’s learning. He was among a number of Oxford academics who, disenchanted with what they saw as a damaging leftward move by the Labour Party, had joined the newly formed centrist Social Democratic Party. Bogdanor, who in some ways had helped provide some of the intellectual underpinning of the new party, was ideally placed to challenge his star pupil’s assumptions. Further, he preferred to be challenged by his students, so Cameron had every opportunity to fight his corner on, say, the rights and wrongs of the electoral system. Bogdanor has spoken of Cameron’s old-fashioned, highly pragmatic approach to politics. While he had leanings towards Euro-scepticism, he tended to approach problems on a ‘whatever works’ basis.

      His Economics tutor, Peter Sinclair, remembers: ‘Typically when David was debating he would take a more pro-market view than a number of them.’ Sinclair would encourage his students to take the pure ‘market’ position as a point of reference and ‘pep it up with very recent, interesting, controversial stuff, typically from American academics, stuff about to be published, or really good working papers, which they would have read, and try to avoid clichés. Don’t just come up with slogans, really think. And he was exceptionally good at that.’ Again, the Cameron manner seems to have made his message more palatable. ‘I can remember some of his interventions,’ says Sinclair. ‘He’d say, “Hang on, you can’t really say that – look at the stats.” He’d always put it very nicely. He was rather keener than the others on the logic of what the market would lead to and slightly less concerned with the wrinkles that could justify a different view. He was quite freethinking and would not tend to take a standard view. His views were on the whole a bit more to the right than most of the others.’

      John Foster, his Philosophy don, said he was very clever, but showed little inclination towards being an academic. ‘He focused on what was required. He didn’t lose sleep over philosophical problems, about the ultimate nature of things, but he was extraordinarily competent.’ It is with reference to this philosophically incurious, pragmatist facet of David Cameron’s nature that his non-engagement in student politics should be seen.

      ‘The Union was lots of people trying to project themselves into a world of politics where they had to prove themselves rhetorically,’ says Francesca Ferguson, ‘but he’d never had any trouble with winning an argument. Loads of people at Oxford were redefining themselves but he didn’t need to redefine himself. He was part of that whole part of society which is heading for running the country. It’s as simple as that. He didn’t feel he had anything to prove. Actually maybe he was just a lot more adult than a lot of people at Oxford.’

      Coming from a family line of Tories, via Eton, to Oxford did not encourage him to advertise his political colours in formal surroundings. While he was as happy as anyone to thrash out arguments about the role of the state, personal freedoms and so on in small informal groups, he disappointed his more zealous Tory contemporaries by not joining in with the further humiliation of the Labour Party. It could be that attitudes at Brasenose compounded the numbing of his political ambition at that time. ‘People would just sit around and drink coffee, chatting and just loving it, and that was their life,’ says Peter Sinclair. ‘It was a contented, cheerful, unstressed place. When he arrived, people in the year above would have said, “Don’t bother with the Union, they’re horrible hacks, knifing each other, publicity-seeking creeps.” That’s the line he would have heard from everybody in Brasenose, so he might have thought, “Right, that sounds good advice.’’’

      For some students getting to Oxford is enough, but for Cameron it was a staging post. Some, like Francesca Ferguson, say his privileged background helped him deal with an experience that some can find overwhelming. ‘You have to be really attuned to that level of privilege to actually make something of it without having an issue with it or being so overwhelmed that you don’t actually achieve,’ as Francesca Ferguson puts it. ‘David totally took it in his stride. He always knew what he wanted, was hugely disciplined and did a lot of work. He never felt he had to prove anything to anyone except to his professors in his exams.’

      By now acquisitive for achievement, he did just that. In the summer of his third year, as predicted by Vernon Bogdanor, he acquired a First. He celebrated by going to the pub with his friend David Granger (who was to learn later that he had got a Third). Years later, he conceded to an interviewer that it may be naff to be proud of your degree, but that he was proud nonetheless. It was vindication of his talents. Now he had to put them to some use.

       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

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