David Cameron and the lobbying scandal that tarnishes his reputation

After leaving Downing Street, the ex-PM became embroiled in Greensill Capital lobbying scandal – with MPs concluding he had shown a “significant lack of judgement”, writes Chris Blackhurst. Questions have also been raised about Cameron’s support for China. What will that mean for his role as foreign secretary?

David Cameron back in Downing Street on Monday after being appointed Foreign Secretary (PA)

Not long ago, David Cameron was spotted under an awning near the Mayfair members club, 5 Hertford Street, having a cigarette. As he waited for a car to pick him up, he looked for all the world how he must have done back at Eton, sneaking a crafty fag. If there was a bike shed, this naughty schoolboy would have been behind it.

There’s always been that hint of the dismissive, the rebellious, with Cameron. To say he has something of the night might be stretching it, but he does exude a certain indifference. There was that doubt, when he was prime minister, as to whether his heart was really engaged. He conveyed a sense of going through the motions: prep school, tick; Eton, tick; Oxford, tick; first-class degree, tick; MP, tick; leader of the Conservative Party, tick; prime minister, tick.

He was not as cavalier as Boris Johnson, who also gave the impression of completing a box-ticking exercise. Cameron did advocate the “big society” (just as Johnson had “levelling up”) without ever properly explaining what it was and, after he quit Downing Street, not throwing himself body and soul behind it.

Again, he displayed a similarly fast and loose approach to process, possibly out of a desire to get on, also from a likely belief it was for other people and of no abiding concern to him.

This was evident from his time in Downing Street. In my book, Too Big to Jail – Inside HSBC, the Mexican Drug Cartels and the Greatest Banking Scandal of the Century, I relay the tale of how in late 2010, Stephen Green, executive chairman of HSBC, found himself propelled into government.

There was no open appointment process. Said Green: “I got the call out of the blue: ‘Would you want to be considered to be the trade minister?’ to which I initially said ‘no’. This came from Jeremy Heywood [Cabinet Secretary] on behalf of the prime minister [David Cameron] and the conversation developed because I made the mistake of saying, ‘Not only do I not want to, but I can’t think of anyone from the business world who would really want to do this’ and he said, ‘Oh why is that?’ I said, ‘Well there’s too much globetrotting, banging the drum and not enough, or at least the perception is, not enough real policy work attached to it: where is the strategy behind this?’ We ended up having a conversation both with him and then with the prime minister on the strategy for improved trade performance and we ended up mocking up a job description and I ended up doing the job. So that’s how I got into it and of course got put in the House of Lords for the same reason.”

This is the same Cameron and Heywood who would later be called out for allowing Lex Greensill, the Australian financier, boss of the collapsed Greensill Capital, into the inner sanctum of Downing Street, giving him a desk and a business card as an adviser to the prime minister. Here they were, previously with Green, helping the HSBC chief write his own brief and rewarding him with the post of government minister and a peerage, which he could hold for the rest of his life.

If they’d done any research, spoken to officials, they would surely have discovered that the Financial Services Authority knew US and Mexican regulators were investigating Green’s bank for facilitating the washing of billions of dollars from the sale of drugs by the fearsomely brutal Sinaloa cartel, led by “El Chapo”. HSBC was subsequently fined the largest amount in US history, $1.8bn. The US Department of Justice wanted to seek convictions against senior HSBC executives but was dissuaded from doing so by the Cameron government.

In his role as a UK minister, Lord Green helped organise a trade mission to Mexico by Cameron. As the pair of them stood in the garden of the Mexican president’s house – both Cameron and Green made speeches – in another part of Mexico City, officials were assisting the Americans in assembling their case.

With Greensill, the Australian financier was heavily promoted by Cameron and vice versa. When Cameron was prime minister, Greensill served as adviser, with all the attendant trappings; then, after Cameron left Downing Street, Cameron became an advisor to Greensill in return for a salary and shares in Greensill Capital.

When that firm collapsed, two inquiries were held into Cameron’s behaviour. One, by the Cabinet Office, found that Cameron “on occasion understated the nature of his relationship with Greensill Capital”. Another, by the Commons Treasury Select Committee, concluded that in his lobbying for Greensill, the former PM had shown a “significant lack of judgement”.

More recently, Cameron’s judgement or absence of it came into question again. He was championing the vast Colombo Port City project in Sri Lanka. This may seem relatively innocuous – Sri Lanka’s hard-pressed economy could do with a boost. Except the scheme is not Sri Lanka’s but is central to the controversial Belt and Road Initiative, China’s mission to buy influence overseas. Colombo Port City is billed as China’s answer to Dubai and Singapore.

Less than two months ago, Cameron spoke at two events for the complex, having previously visited the site in person. Cameron stressed he had not been hired directly by Beijing or Colombo Port City’s Chinese state-owned developer. He was booked by Washington Speakers Bureau for their client, KPMG Sri Lanka.

Nevertheless, the ex-UK prime minister spoke up for a scheme that the White House fears could be used for money laundering and ultimately as a Chinese military outpost.

It was not the first occasion Cameron has enjoyed good relations with China. He was vice-chair of a £1bn China-UK investment fund, prompting Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee or ISC to say this year that Cameron’s appointment to that post could have been “in some part engineered by the Chinese state to lend credibility to Chinese investment”.

Sam Hogg, a UK-China analyst, said: “As the ISC pointed out, China has a habit of utilising former senior-ranking politicians to give credibility to their companies and projects… Cameron’s involvement will raise a few eyebrows.”

Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said: “We can't have a situation where the EU and US are so concerned about the Belt and Road Initiative that they're pumping billions into alternative projects, while our own former PM appears to be batting for Beijing.”

Worryingly, he’s not the former PM, waiting for cars, calling on old contacts, making paid-for speeches anymore. He’s back, in a real job, as Britain’s new foreign secretary. Not for the first time you’re left asking, did a UK prime minister perform due diligence?