As the government he once led continues to wrestle with the consequences of the Brexit referendum he called, David Cameron popped up in Dallas on Wednesday night to grapple with a very different set of rules and regulations.
The former UK prime minister joined George W Bush to watch the Southern Methodist University Mustangs beat the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs, 74-59.
Cameron tweeted:
My second basketball game with a US President & I'm still a bit baffled by some of the rules! Congrats @SMUBasketball - great game. #PonyUp pic.twitter.com/hyyDSo2IvK
— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) December 8, 2016
Bush’s wife, Laura, was also present.
The previous game Cameron was referring to came in Ohio in 2012, when Barack Obama, perhaps the country’s most famous basketball fan, took him to a March Madness college game in Dayton.
The pair ate hot dogs and Obama periodically leaned over to explain the action as they sat courtside. It was a brief excursion to a swing state ahead of that November’s presidential election, with Cameron in the US for an official visit and dinner in Washington.
Cameron became prime minister in 2010, some 17 months after Bush had left the White House and returned to Texas, where he was governor from 1995 to 2000. His friendship with one of Cameron’s predecessors, Tony Blair, is much more well documented.
Cameron did not immediately respond to a request to elaborate on the meeting with Bush.
A spokesman for Bush said the former president and his wife “were delighted that former prime minister Cameron could visit with them at the Bush Center yesterday and stay for the SMU-TCU game across the street afterwards”.
On Thursday Cameron is scheduled to give a speech titled “The Historic Events of 2016 and Where We Go From Here” at DePauw University in Indiana.
He has kept a low profile after losing the Brexit vote in June and resigning, but earlier this month he spoke at a conference in New Delhi and met with Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India. Last month, Cameron was reportedly paid £120,000 for a one-hour speech on Wall Street.
In February, George W Bush is publishing a book of his paintings of military veterans, Portraits of Courage.
He did not vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in last month’s presidential election, a spokesman told the Texas Tribune.
