Seven months after leaving Downing Street in the wake of the Brexit vote, David Cameron has appeared in a bizarre video with Arnold Schwarzenegger vowing: “I’ll be back.”
In a rare public appearance, a relaxed-looking Cameron, in open-necked shirt and with tousled hair, poses with the actor and former California governor in the video posted on Schwarzenegger’s Snapchat feed.
“I’m with my good friend David Cameron, from England, the ex-prime minister,” Schwarzenegger says by way of introduction. Cameron adds: “I’m with the governor. He did a great job, and I’ll be back.”
It is not clear in what capacity the former prime minister was predicting his return, but it is unlikely he meant politics, having resigned as an MP in September.
Schwarzenegger’s chummy encounter with Cameron on Friday followed a less cordial exchange with Donald Trump the previous day. At a national prayer breakfast, the president had taunted the actor over the TV ratings of his former show The Apprentice, which Schwarzenegger now presents.
“They hired a big, big movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to take my place, and we know how that turned out,” Trump said. “The ratings went right down the tubes. It’s been a total disaster … I just want to pray for Arnold, if we can, for those ratings, OK?”
Schwarzenegger posted a short video on his Twitter feed in which he said: “Hey Donald, I have a great idea. Why don’t we switch jobs? You take over TV, since you’re such an expert in ratings, and I’ll take over your job, and then people can finally sleep comfortably again.”
He later released a statement through his spokesman that read: “Arnold is praying that President Trump can start improving his own approval ratings, which were the worst in history for an incoming president, by taking his job seriously and working inclusively.”
Not content to leave it there, Trump tweeted on Friday: “Yes, Arnold Schwarzenegger did a really bad job as governor of California and even worse on The Apprentice, but at least he tried hard!”
Cameron’s comment that the former governor did a “great job” may have been a gentle rebuttal to the president.
It is not clear where Cameron and Schwarzenegger shot their video. Their relationship goes back to 2007 when Cameron, then leader of the opposition, travelled to California in an attempt to align himself with the then governor.
At the time, he told an audience of tech entrepreneurs that his wife had asked him how he would explain to an American audience what sort of Conservative he was. “I said: ‘Darling, I’ll just say look at me and think of Arnold Schwarzenegger.’”
The pair later met at the Schwarzenegger’s office in Sacramento, talking in a tent in the garden so the governor could smoke cigars. As he left, Cameron was presented with a gift of 10 of Schwarzenegger’s favourite movies on DVD, two of which were his own.
