David Cameron has a lot of things to be sorry for – but not Covid-19

There is no shortage of reasons that Cameron might find himself staring at his bedroom ceiling at 2am, looking within himself for answers. Pandemic preparedness should not be one of them, writes Tom Peck

Former prime minister David Cameron giving evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry in Paddington, west London, on Monday (PA Media)

David Cameron, remember him? He was prime minister, once upon a time. It was a simpler time, too. One when questions like, “What might we do if there’s a pandemic?” was the sort of decadent problem that might keep a prime minister busy for a morning or two. Host the odd meeting, make the odd call, before reaching for the iPhone 3 and for a long afternoon of Fruit Ninja.

It was nice, quaint, almost, to see him back in public. He was, according to Wikipedia, prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 2010 to 2016. Sadly, nobody, least of all him, can remember anything that he actually did.

He is best known for resigning, apologising for Brexit, and then apologising for everything he did after Brexit, which was mainly texting former officials and asking them if they wouldn’t mind doing him a few favours with regard to some work he was doing for a now-disgraced Australian businessman which he hoped was going to make him fifty million quid but which also – see if you can spot a pattern emerging here – went very badly wrong.