Thread by @lewis_goodall

An evening with @David_Cameron at the Barbican. The head of the man in front of me looks much larger than it is. #timesplus

Is asked whether he became PM too early: “You can’t really pick and choose.”

“But no job you will ever do will be as satisfying.”

Cameron: “now I’ve finished the book I’ll have to think of doing other things.” Might you go back to politics? “I don’t think so no. There are other ways to do public service.”

Cameron: “I’m trying to be a better husband and father. Trying to do some of the homework. I find it quite tricky. @michaelgove’s GCSE reforms aren’t universally popular in my house.”

Cameron says he thinks he could have formed another coalition with Nick Clegg if they had to. Says neither he nor Clegg thought Lib Dems would lose so many seats. But history will be kind to him.

Cameron: “Did austerity cause populism? No I don’t think so. The 2008 crash made people think again about globalisation.”

Hmm.

Witherow (interviewer): “one of the things which comes across in the book is that you’re a loyal family man. Seems especially relevant at the moment...”

Cameron: “this is the one subject I wanted to avoid...”

Cameron says he thought about quitting politics when his son- Ivan- died.

Cameron on Obama: “I liked him enormously. He was hard working, honourable and we got on with each other.” Turns out Obama tucked him in once on Air Force One: “I bet Roosevelt never did this for Churchill.”

But criticises Obama for not acting over Syria: “I look back on it as a terrible failure, he looks back on it as the right decision.”

Putin to Cameron: “David I know what you think of me. You think I’m a devil with horns and a tail who doesn’t believe in democracy...

...And in some ways you wouldn’t be entirely wrong.”

Cameron on the referendum: “It was becoming inevitable...people forget about Blair pledging a referendum in 2005. The political pressure was growing and there was a genuine problem of Britain outside the Eurozone.”

Cameron: “We increase rather than reduce our sovereignty by being in partnership with the French, the Germans and so on.”

How could you not know half a dozen cabinet ministers would want to leave? Cameron: “I don’t think they knew they wanted to leave.”

Cameron says he wasn’t complacent about Brexit.

Would he still have held the referendum if he could have had his time again? “Yes. A future Tory leader would have held it who might have campaigned to get out. But lots of mistakes...I’ll go to my grave wondering if there were things we could have done better.”

Cameron: “the most significant moment of the [Brexit] campaign itself was the immigration figures coming out two weeks before polling day.”

Cameron says he ponders about whether he could have got more from the EU on immigration “the whole time...I’ll never know whether if I’d made it my one big ask and hammered away, that I might have got somewhere. I’ll always wonder.”

Cameron: “Angela Merkel always used to say she was giving me extra “wurst”...but I let expectations get too high.”

Cameron says that had we voted remain it would have largely settled the European issue in British politics.

Hmm.

Cameron on Boris Johnson: “I wanted him on my team...but over Brexit I think he made a huge mistake...I think we was genuinely torn. I think he thought his side was going to lose.”

Cameron: “Let’s leave Dominic Cummings to one side...that’s what I was tried to do but they keep letting him back into govt.”

Cameron: “You can’t disobey the law as prime minister. Parliament has said what has to happen next, you have to have the extension.”

Cameron: “You can’t rule out a second referendum. You can’t remain blocked. The fundamental fact of British politics today is a blocked parliament.”

Would the Tories win a general election against Jeremy Corbyn? Cameron: “I just don’t know.”

Cameron: “at one point Corbyn wanted to go to Turkey and talk about freedom of movement. I had to say I couldn’t think of anything less helpful.”