David Cameron - For The Record

ISBN : 978-0-00-823928-2

Verdict : 👍👍

In summary:  an enjoyable but very long read - it was prudent of David Cameron to publish "For the Record" , if only to justify his actions which resulted in the mess that is Brexit  and will have long term consequences to everyone in the UK


In all honesty, I enjoyed reading it, despite it being so long and I mean long(703 Pages !!)  . It provides some great snippets on why he and his government made specific choices and more importantly the logic behind these choices.

Obviously, as one would suspect, he uses this book to have a dig at certain events and people e.g..Qatar being aware the 2020 World cup where (P161) he states "The fish had been bought and sold before we'd even got to the marketplace".

My favourite bit in the book (P508) is where he shares a text he sent to Michael Gove when he had offered him to head up the Whips office , in which he said “You must realise that I divide the world into team players and wankers. You’ve always been a team player. Please don’t become a wanker."

One thing this book reinforces is that what ever politicians promote in their manifestos should be taken with a pinch of salt - anything to get our vote (P244) e.g. "So having promoted to scrap tuition fees in our 2005 manifesto (which was opportunistic) and have been ambivalent on the issues in the years(which was lazy), we now had a proper policy on higher education advocating an increase to a maximum of £9000 a year" . Lets not forget "the Liberal Democrats had campaigned in the 2010 election on a promise not to raise tuition fees"(P225)

On our current PM - just one of the quotes on page 357 - "Boris was the one who was full of jealousies and paranoias, which so often influenced his behaviour"

There is some stuff in the book, I felt was not in our national interest, for a former PM to publish e.g. the diplomatic transfer of tablets to Japan during the nuclear disaster and some views on current (despite being treacherous ) ministers.

In summary a enjoyable but very long read giving some insight into how decisions are made and how are politicians go up the political food chain.