,
50 tweets,
5 min read
Read on Twitter
THREAD: Awaiting @david_cameron at the Barbican in central London... 
He’s appearing at an event hosted by @thetimes
2,000 people in the audience here, the Editor of The Times John Witherow says
Here we go
David Cameron tells us he is 53 on Wednesday
Your first job on leaving office is to ‘shut up,’ David Cameron says, to give your successor a chance
Will you come back into politics: ‘I don’t think so, no.’
Cameron on Clegg: ‘the history books will be very kind to him and they should be.’
Cameron: ‘did austerity cause populism? I don’t think so.’
David Cameron on the death of his son Ivan: ‘it is like the world stands still. I probably went back to work too soon.’
‘My children are at all sorts of schools. I have a son at St Paul’s in London.’
David Cameron tells a story of President Obama ‘tucking him in’ to the President’s bed on Airforce One
David Cameron acknowledges he personified the very thing he was critical of his party about when he became leader — the idea it was too posh, too southern, too male and too white
Cameron: ‘if Iraq was the problem with intervention, Syria was the problem with non intervention.’
David Cameron says the problem with dealing with the Russians was they lie
Cameron on Putin: ‘romantic, unreconstructed nationalist.’
David Cameron on the Brexit referendum: ‘it was becoming inevitable we would have to face this question.’
Cameron: ‘there was growing genuine problem. The pace of change in the Eurozone...’
Cameron: ‘at that moment I could see our position was becoming quite precarious. It wasn’t just political pressure, there was a genuine problem.’
Cameron: ‘I wasn’t overconfident. I recorded at the time what a difficult campaign it was going to be.’
Cameron on Juncker: ‘what happened was Britain...the second biggest member...was effectively saying anyone but this guy....we needed someone who wanted Europe to be a network, not a bloc’
The appointment of Jean Claude Juncker was part of the ‘journey to Brexit,’ Mr Cameron says
A referendum was an ‘inevitability,’ he said, by him or a successor
Cameron: ‘I will go to my grave wondering if there were things we could have done better.’
Cameron: ‘Brexit was always going to be very difficult’ but it is deliverable for a country with an economy of the UK’s size
Cameron talks of importance of immigration figures that came out a fortnight before referendum day
Getting a much bigger thing on immigration looked impossible, Mr Cameron says, but says ‘I will always wonder.’
Cameron: they felt they were giving us ‘extra wurst’ as Angela Merkel put it, but ‘I had let expectations run too high.’
Cameron: ‘there is an argument that Britons as a whole have always been very uneasy about the political nature of the project.’
Cameron on Johnson: ‘over Brexit I think he made a huge mistake.’
Cameron on Johnson: ‘I think he was genuinely torn. But I think he also thought his side was going to lose.’
Cameron: ‘I think a no deal Brexit is a bad idea. Bad economically for the United Kingdom.’
Cameron: ‘you can’t disobey the law as Prime Minister.’
Cameron: ‘in order to deliver the outcome of the referendum, you have to get a deal.’
Will the Tories win against Corbyn: ‘I just don’t know.’
Cameron on Gove: ‘I have spoken to him. I have seen him’ — he says, while staring at the floor, looking pained
Cameron on the union: ‘a no deal Brexit would make things worse’ — but he says the emotional ties between the nations of the UK are stronger than our connection to the EU
‘This is one of the many stupid things I said,’ says David Cameron in response to this question
David Cameron suggests the Norway or Switzerland model would have been sensible for Brexit
David Cameron is asked about who should lead a government of the opposition parties. He says anyone he names will stand no chance, and so he says John Bercow, to laughter and applause from the audience
Cameron: ‘the strongest voice for a liberal open market Atlanticist Europe will have left.’
Next question...
David Cameron defends the use of referendums to answer constitutional questions
Cameron: ‘we didn’t crystallise the argument as clearly as we should have done’ — on Irish border question
Cameron: ‘Boris is compromising and i suspect will have to move more.’
‘The single market is a religious text for them’ — Cameron on EU
Cameron suggests fiscal union will happen eventually in the EU
Cameron on lowering voting age to 16 for referendum: ‘I think it would have looked very opportunistic and there would have been a huge rebellion on my own side.’
Cameron: ‘The party is going to have to work harder’ to appear to be on the centre ground
David Cameron jokes that @Nigel_Farage has a ‘poncy sounding, foreign name.’
