David Cameron

He is the younger son of Ian Donald Cameron (1932–2010) a stockbroker, and his wife Mary Fleur, a retired Justice of the Peace and a daughter of Sir William Mount, 2nd Baronet.

Cameron is a descendant of King William IV through one of the king's illegitimate children.

He has two sisters and an elder brother, Alexander Cameron KC (1963–2023), a barrister, who died of cancer.

David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton, (born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who has served as Foreign Secretary since 2023.

David William Donald Cameron was born on 9 October 1966 at The London Clinic in Marylebone, London, and raised at Peasemore in Berkshire.

Cameron is the first former prime minister to be appointed to a ministerial post since Alec Douglas-Home in 1970.

Cameron has been credited for helping to modernise the Conservative Party and for reducing the United Kingdom's inherited national deficit as prime minister.

From 1988 to 1993 he worked at the Conservative Research Department, latterly assisting the Conservative prime minister John Major, before leaving politics to work for Carlton Communications in 1994.

Becoming an MP in 2001, he served in the opposition Shadow Cabinet under Conservative leader Michael Howard, and succeeded Howard in 2005.

Cameron sought to rebrand the Conservatives, embracing an increasingly socially liberal position and introducing the "A-List" to increase the number of female and minority ethnic Conservative MPs.

He previously served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016, as Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016, and as Leader of the Opposition from 2005 to 2010, while serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Witney from 2001 to 2016.

He identifies as a one-nation conservative and has been associated with both economically liberal and socially liberal policies.

Born in London to an upper-middle-class family, Cameron was educated at Heatherdown School, then Eton College, before going up to Brasenose College, Oxford.

Following the 2010 general election, negotiations led to Cameron becoming prime minister as the head of a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats.

His premiership was marked by the ongoing effects of the global financial crisis; these involved a large deficit in government finances that his government sought to reduce through austerity measures.

His administration passed the Health and Social Care Act and the Welfare Reform Act, which introduced large-scale changes to healthcare and welfare.

Cameron's father, Ian, was born at Blairmore House near Huntly, Aberdeenshire, and died near Toulon, France, on 8 September 2010; Blairmore was built by Cameron's great-great-grandfather, Alexander Geddes, who had made a fortune in the grain trade in Chicago, Illinois, before returning to Scotland in the 1880s.

Blairmore was sold soon after Ian's birth.

Cameron has said: "On my mother's side of the family, her mother was a Llewellyn, so Welsh. I'm a real mixture of Scottish, Welsh and English."

He has also referenced the German Jewish ancestry of one of his great-grandfathers, Arthur Levita, a descendant of the Yiddish author Elia Levita.

Cameron was educated at two private schools.

From the age of seven, he was taught at Heatherdown School in Winkfield, Berkshire.

The school counts Prince Andrew and Prince Edward among its old boys.

Owing to good grades, he entered its top academic class almost two years early.

At the age of 13, he went on to Eton College in Berkshire, following his father and elder brother.

His early interest was in art.

It also enforced stricter immigration policies, introduced reforms to education and oversaw the 2012 London Olympics.

Cameron's administration also privatised Royal Mail and some other state assets, and legalised same-sex marriage in England and Wales.

Internationally, Cameron's government intervened militarily in the First Libyan Civil War and authorised the bombing of the Islamic State.

Domestically, his government oversaw the referendum on voting reform and Scottish independence referendum, both of which confirmed Cameron's favoured outcome.

When the Conservatives secured an unexpected majority in the 2015 general election, he remained as prime minister, this time leading a Conservative-only government.

To fulfil a manifesto pledge, Cameron introduced a referendum on the UK's continuing membership of the European Union in 2016.

He supported the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign for the UK to remain in the EU.

Following the success of the Leave vote, Cameron resigned as prime minister and was succeeded in the 2016 Conservative Party leadership election by Theresa May, his home secretary.

However, he was subject to a level of criticism for the 2016 manifesto commitment to implement the referendum on the UK's continued membership of the EU and his vocal support for remain, which ultimately led to his resignation as prime minister.

This led to a sustained period of political instability for the rest of the decade.

After leaving office, he was implicated in the Greensill scandal after lobbying government ministers and civil servants on behalf of Greensill Capital.

In historical rankings of prime ministers of the United Kingdom, academics and journalists have ranked Cameron in the fourth and third quintiles, respectively.

After his premiership, Cameron gave up his seat and served as the president of Alzheimer's Research UK from 2017 to 2023.

During the November 2023 cabinet reshuffle, Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak appointed Cameron foreign secretary and recommended him for a life peerage.