David Cameron

The Right Honourable
The Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton
PC
The Right Honourable The Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton PC
	Official portrait, 2023
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
	In office; 11 May 2010 – 13 July 2016
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Deputy	Nick Clegg; (2010–2015)
First Secretary	William Hague; George Osborne;
Preceded by	Gordon Brown
Succeeded by	Theresa May
Leader of the Opposition
	In office; 6 December 2005 – 11 May 2010
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Prime Minister	Tony Blair; Gordon Brown;
Deputy	William Hague
Preceded by	Michael Howard
Succeeded by	Harriet Harman
Leader of the Conservative Party
	In office; 6 December 2005 – 11 July 2016
Preceded by	Michael Howard
Succeeded by	Theresa May
Foreign Secretary
	In office; 13 November 2023 – 5 July 2024
Prime Minister	Rishi Sunak
Deputy	Andrew Mitchell; (Apr–Jul 2024)
Preceded by	James Cleverly
Succeeded by	David Lammy
Leader
Shadow portfolios
Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills
	In office; 10 May 2005 – 6 December 2005
Leader	Michael Howard
Preceded by	Tim Collins
Succeeded by	David Willetts
Conservative Policy Review Coordinator
	In office; 14 June 2004 – 10 May 2005
Leader	Michael Howard
Preceded by	David Willetts
Succeeded by	Oliver Letwin
Member of the House of Lords
	Lord Temporal
	Life peerage ; 17 November 2023
Member of Parliament; for Witney
	In office; 7 June 2001 – 12 September 2016
Preceded by	Shaun Woodward
Succeeded by	Robert Courts
Personal details
Born	David William Donald Cameron; 9 October 1966; Marylebone, London, England
Party	Conservative
Spouse	Samantha Sheffield (m. 1996)
Children	4
Relatives	Cameron family
Education	Brasenose College, Oxford (MA)
Signature

David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton (born 9 October 1966), is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. Cameron was Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016 and Leader of the Opposition from 2005 to 2010. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Witney from 2001 to 2016. After his premiership he was elevated to the House of Lords as a life peer in November 2023 to serve as Foreign Secretary in the Sunak ministry until July 2024. Cameron identifies as a one-nation conservative and has been associated with both economically and socially liberal policies. He is the most recent British prime minister to have held the office continually for a full parliament.

Born in London to an upper-middle-class family, Cameron was educated at Eton College and Brasenose College, Oxford. After becoming an MP at the 2001 general election, he served in the opposition Shadow Cabinet under the Conservative leader Michael Howard, and succeeded Howard in 2005. Following the 2010 general election, negotiations led to Cameron becoming prime minister as the head of a coalition government formed by the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats.

Cameron's premiership was marked by the effects of the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession, which the government sought to address through austerity measures. Parliament passed the Health and Social Care Act and the Welfare Reform Act, which allowed the government to introduce large-scale changes to healthcare and welfare. The government also attempted to enforce stricter immigration policies via the Home Office hostile environment policy, introduced reforms to education, and oversaw the 2012 London Olympics. It privatised Royal Mail and some other state assets, implemented the Equality Act 2010, and legalised same-sex marriage in England and Wales. Internationally, Cameron oversaw Operation Ellamy in the First Libyan Civil War and authorised the bombing of the Islamic State in Syria. Constitutionally, the government oversaw the 2011 United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum and the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, both of which confirmed Cameron's favoured "no" outcome. When the Conservatives secured an unexpected majority in the 2015 general election, Cameron began leading a Conservative-majority government. He introduced the Brexit referendum on the UK's continuing membership of the European Union in 2016, and supported the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, which lost. Following the success of Vote Leave, Cameron resigned as prime minister and party leader and was succeeded by Theresa May, his home secretary.

Cameron resigned his seat in the House of Commons in September 2016, and thereafter maintained a low political profile for several years. He was president of Alzheimer's Research UK from 2017 to 2023, and returned to this position in 2025. He was implicated in the Greensill scandal. His memoir, For the Record, was published in 2019. In 2023 he was appointed foreign secretary by Rishi Sunak, that appointment facilitated by his becoming a member of the House of Lords as a life peer. He served as foreign secretary until the Conservatives lost the 2024 general election.

Cameron has been credited for helping to modernise the Conservative Party and for reducing the UK's national deficit. He has also been criticised for austerity measures, his support for foreign intervention in the Libyan and Syrian civil wars, as well as his decision to hold the EU membership referendum, which led to political instability in the UK during the late 2010s.