David William Donald Cameron

Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Leader of the Conservative Party

Date of Birth: 09/09/1966
Place of Birth: London, UK

Education: Heatherdown Preparatory School, Winkfield, Berkshire, UK.

Eton College School, Berkshire, UK. Cameron achieved 12 O-levels and 3 A-levels in History of Art, History and Politics & Economics.

Brasenose College, University of Oxford, UK. Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE).

Career: Conservative Research Department 1988-1993. Special Advisor to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont 1992-1993. Special Advisor to the Home Secretary, Michael Howard 1993-1994. Director of Corporate Affairs, Carlton Communications 1994-2001. Member of Parliament for Witney, Oxfordshire, since 2001.

Shadow Secretary of State for Education 2003-2005. Leader of the Opposition 2005-2010. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since May 2010.

When 43-year-old David Cameron won the 2010 general election to become Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, he also became the youngest British Prime Minister since the Earl of Liverpool 198 years earlier. He is also an unusual choice of leader for the Conservative party.

After 40 years of state school-educated leaders from relatively humble backgrounds, the Eton and Oxford-educated Cameron represents a return to the 'establishment elite'. He is the first leader of the party to have gone to Eton College since Sir Alec Douglas-Home in the early 1960s, but he has been keen to dispel his 'toff' image, looking to appear as more of a man of the people than his royal heritage suggests (Cameron is a direct descendant of King William IV). His membership of the notorious Oxford student drinking and dining society, the Bullingdon Club (alongside the future Mayor of London, Boris Johnson), has been something that Cameron has consistently refused to discuss.

David Cameron is married to Samantha Sheffield; they have three children.

In the general elections held on 6 May 2010, the Conservatives won the plurality of seats in a hung Parliament, and Cameron was appointed head of a coalition government between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, with Nick Clegg, the Liberal-Democrat leader, as Deputy Prime Minister.

‘Last April, the Conservative Shadow Secretary for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, with full support from party leader David Cameron, introduced a motion in Parliament calling for British companies to withdraw from Sudan in protest against ethnic cleansing (AC Vol 49 No 5); he highlighted the role of oil production and petrodollars in fuelling atrocities in Darfur.’

David Cameron was led the debate on Africa at the last G-20 summit in June 2010, calling on  other world leaders to meet the promises made at Gleneagles in 2005. Cameron visited Rwanda in July 2007 as part of an aid project. He declared that tackling global poverty was a ‘personal priority’ and said that there are many issues ‘we can’t deal with unless we engage with the countries of sub-Saharan Africa.’

In his early years in politics, while working with the Conservative Party Research Team, Cameron visited South Africa during the apartheid era, while Nelson Mandela was in prison. The trip was funded by Derek Laud, an employee of Strategy Network International (SNI), who later went on to become a Big Brother contestant.