David Cameron

For the Record


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of Churchill he had put in pride of place outside his bedroom.

      The relationship was plain for all to see in the easy and instant connection we forged – one that was rooted in the values we shared.

      Yes, he was a Democrat and I was a Conservative. But when it came to the issues in front of us, we didn’t need time to reach agreement. We were both committed to the defeat of the Taliban, but believed the war in Afghanistan shouldn’t go on forever. We agreed that lethal force should be used to defeat terrorism, and were passionate about progress on climate change and development. We were also pro-free trade, and wanted to counter the forces of protectionism that risked dangerous trade wars. Indeed, I always sensed that Obama was envious of our political system. I was in coalition, but still had the freedom and power to go further on these issues than he could.

      My impressions on that visit were that he was a likeable, decent man with a great sense of humour and, as a former law professor, the ability to provide a brilliant analysis of the most complex situations. What a relief it was, I thought, that someone with good values and buckets of common sense was in the White House, in the most powerful job in the world.

      The strength of the relationship also mattered at that first meeting, as there were some particularly tricky bilateral issues to deal with, including the horrific oil spill from BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010. This was being billed as a showdown between the US and the UK, between Obama and me. US officials continued to refer to the company as ‘British Petroleum’, though it had dropped the name in 2000 after a series of mergers and had, as I pointed out to Barack, the same percentage of American shareholders as British ones.

      There was also an issue of basic fairness. When US-based companies – like Halliburton, which was one of the three companies involved in Deepwater Horizon’s operation – were not paying unlimited damages, why should a British-based one be singled out for such treatment?

      I made all these points, but it was initially hard to tell how much impact they had. At least Obama could see how strongly we felt about the issue.

      The most significant question we discussed in Washington was whether and how to talk to the Taliban. Though I was to make progress on this in the following years, it was another of the agendas I wish I had pushed harder.

      After the summits and America came Turkey – not a country that is usually found on the itinerary of new prime ministers’ Grand Tours. But I was eager to change that. In a bid to reach out to the powers of the future, I wanted to go there as early as possible.

      I had always believed Turkey’s success was important. It was a potentially powerful ally to Britain – vital to the Middle East peace process and in halting a nuclear Iran. It was a fast-growing economy of considerable size – ‘our Brazil’, I called it. But above all, it is one of the world’s most prosperous Muslim countries, proof that Muslim democracies and Muslim market economies can work.

      For these reasons I believed that, in the long term, Turkey ought to be in the European Union. As I had said in my G8 speech – which apparently drove Sarkozy almost mad – I wanted to ‘pave the road from Ankara to Brussels’. I wasn’t saying that millions of Turks should automatically be allowed free movement across Europe (a stick I was to be thoroughly beaten with later). I was saying that in a flexible, multi-speed Europe, where membership meant different things for different countries – the Europe we wanted and would argue for – Turkey should be inside the wider tent. The EU should not be reserved for Western Christendom alone. (Incidentally, Boris Johnson thought this too.)

      Enhancing the British–Turkish relationship was an example of an agenda that ran into the ground. The trade issues progressed well, but the fact was that the mood in Europe was turning against any form of Turkish membership – and Erdoğan’s real ambitions were heading in a different direction.

      From Ankara I flew to India to lead my first-ever trade delegation. I loaded up a plane with CEOs, cabinet ministers, top officials, heads of museums and galleries, even Olympians Kelly Holmes and Steve Redgrave.

      This was commercial diplomacy in practice – and it was an agenda that yielded enormous results. We more than doubled exports to China and South Korea, and became the foreign investment capital of Europe, something that would be a key driver of the explosion in private sector jobs in the years that followed.

      When it came to India, I argued that we needed a modern partnership – not one tinged with colonial guilt, but alive to the possibilities of the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest democracy. Many of Britain’s most successful business leaders and cultural figures are from the Indian diaspora community and would be our greatest weapons in that endeavour. I was proud to have many of them, like Priti Patel, Shailesh Vara, Alok Sharma and Paul Uppal, on the Conservative benches in the House of Commons.

      I got on well with prime minister Manmohan Singh. He was a saintly man, but he was robust on the threats India faced. On a later visit he told me that another terrorist attack like that in Mumbai in July 2011, and India would have to take military action against Pakistan.

      Then came my curveball: Italy.

      ‘What’s the dress code for dinner?’ I asked one of my team before we set off for Rome. ‘A thong,’ he replied.

      What a dinner it was. Everything was tricolour – mozzarella, avocado and tomato for the first course, then white, green and red pasta to follow. And so it went on. As did Berlusconi. Outrageous joke after outrageous joke – none of them funny.

      On another occasion he walked into the room where we held the interminable meetings to find me chatting with the prime minister of one of the smaller countries whom he clearly didn’t know. When I introduced them he said, ‘You must come to Rome and meet my wife – you look just like her lover.’ That one, I confess, did make me laugh.

      Over time I came to realise that, far from putting people off, Berlusconi’s unscripted brashness was part of the attraction. Italy had suffered so much from corruption in its political system that his eccentricities were a permanent reminder that he was different.

      For all his loucheness, Berlusconi shared some values with me: he was pro-free market, pro-enterprise and anti-regulation. We tried to unblock a lot of foreign investments, including a BP gas terminal in Italy that had been in limbo for twenty years.

      Italy was the fourth-largest European economy, a net contributor to the EU budget and a major player when it came to security. Yet it was often left out of discussions between the ‘big three’ – Germany, France and the UK. I thought we could rectify that, making Italy a big ally on NATO and on building a more flexible Europe.

      There were four Italian PMs while I