“I’m only 49,” David Cameron said as he announced he would be leaving parliament with immediate effect to “start to build a life outside Westminster”.
He spoke about his hope that he would “still contribute in terms of public service and to the country”, while allies were quoted suggesting Cameron would seek to stay involved in a series of issues close to his heart including anti-corruption efforts, dementia, schooling and life chances.
There will, however, be more lucrative options available if, at some point in the future, he decides he wants to take them. Free from the restrictions of political life, opportunities to make millions of pounds from directorships, book deals and speechmaking will open up in front of him.
Tony Blair’s high-profile, lucrative and controversial post-Downing Street career as a Middle East peace envoy and international business broker – including a reported £2m a year role for JP Morgan – looms large over any speculation about what Cameron might do next.
Taking corporate money after leaving office has become a well-trodden path. John Major, the prime minister until 1997, was chairman of the European private equity funds of the Carlyle Group until 2004. Gordon Brown’s first role in the private sector was on a global advisory board at the international investment firm Pimco; he gave his fees to charity.
The former chancellor Alistair Darling has joined the board of the US bank Morgan Stanley, a more formal role than being an advisor. Cameron could expect to earn as much as £80,000 a year for a non-executive role in a large company. He has some connections in the City, not least with the stockbroker Panmure Gordon, where his late father, Ian, was a director.
“I think most likely he will be sucked into the corporate world and he will become the non-executive director of three or four companies and perhaps the chairman of one,” said Tim Bell, chair of the public relations firm Bell Pottinger and a former communications adviser to Margaret Thatcher. “I don’t think he’ll go into banking because I don’t think he likes that world and it is so predictable. It’s what George [Osborne] would do.”
Lord Bell also predicted Cameron could be attracted by international roles, including at the United Nations or even the European Union, which would perhaps be the ultimate irony.
“He needs money but not that much,” said Bell. “His financial needs are not as great as Blair’s were. His wife is rich and the Astor family [Samantha Cameron’s stepfather is Viscount Astor] have plenty of money. I think he is now obsessed with what he thinks about as public service. He talks about it all the time.”
Like Blair, who quit parliament as soon as he resigned in 2007, Cameron has wasted little time in moving on. By contrast, Gordon Brown spent five years on the backbenches after he was ousted in 2010 before throwing himself into a new life of book writing and work as a United Nations education envoy.
Cameron has decided not to continue his constituency work in Witney, Oxfordshire, and is said not to feel burdened by his role presiding over the historic Brexit vote that ended his premiership.
Lord Chadlington, a PR adviser and friend and neighbour of Cameron in Oxfordshire, told the Guardian: “I don’t want to speak pejoratively of Mr Blair, but I think Mr Cameron will think more of what he can do in the charitable field and will think more about other ways in which he could serve. He is still a very young man. He is 49 he could be working for another 20 or 25 years. I think he will take his time over what he does, but it is more likely to be in the charitable area than in other areas [like trade and business].”
A series of more obvious opportunities also present themselves, including public speaking, from which Blair has reportedly made as much as £330,000 a time. Cameron will hope to be able to charge more than his former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, who has been seeking up to £32,000 per speech through one agency.
It was reported in July that Cameron was planning to “go dark”, stepping back from public life to write his memoir. The advance for Blair’s autobiography, A Journey, was reported to be £4.6m.
