Samantha Cameron has said she was ‘having a beer and a few rollies’ as she packed up the flat about Number 10, Downing Street in the days following her husband’s resignation as Prime Minister.
David and Samantha Cameron were interviewed by Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on the This Morning sofa today, and discussed their life in Downing Street and Mr Cameron’s autobiography For The Record, which was published today.
Mrs Cameron said that Downing Street – which is a huge complex of offices – can be strange at night when the building is empty.
And she said at one point while ‘having a beer and having a few rollies’ around the flat in the days after the resignation, she realised she had even accidentally packed their bed sheets.
Mr Cameron said the house move had to happen much faster than anticipated once the 2016 Tory leadership contest collapsed and praised his wife for organising their departure.
He said: ‘Sam was brilliant at moving out and finding somewhere to go and keeping the family sorted’
The Camerons had days rather than weeks to move out of Downing Street in 2016
Challenged by Phillip Schofield on whether he had ‘thrown a grenade and run away, David Cameron said he had ‘thrown himself into the campaign on one side’.
He went on: ‘I just felt I’d have no credibility if I’d stayed and we’d need have a new Prime Minister.
‘But I didn’t think I’d be leaving in a few day I thought I’d have three months.
‘I hated leaving the job I loved and the country I loved.’
On the infamous humming recorded as he walked back to the door of Number 10 after his resignation speech, he said: ‘I’d had a few experiences of walking back to the No10 door and it not opening, and I thought with everything that’s happened… I’m going to be out in just day and that door’s not going to open.
‘And I was just trying to calm myself with that totally out-of-tune hum.
‘I was in no way happy that I’d failed in this mission.’
David and Samantha Cameron were interviewed by Philip and Holly on This Morning today
Family space: Samantha Cameron spoke warmly of the flat (pictured) above Downing Street
Speaking about the referendum, Mr Cameron said: ‘It was a huge decision, but the referendum didn’t come from nowhere we’d had promises of referendums and treaties and changes for years.
‘I think people were frustrated the last time we voted on it for 40 years ago when there were eight members.
‘I accept my responsibility for holding a referendum and losing a referendum – because I wanted us to stay – and for the difficult consequences that followed.
‘I wanted to keep a promise I made to give people the choice, to stay in a reformed Europe, or if they wanted to leave.’
He said he had ‘failed’ in the endeavour to keep Britain in a reformed Europe.
He added: ‘I hope we can get out of this hiatus that has followed and I’m sure we can. I’m deeply sorry about what’s happened since and hope we can get out of it soon.’
He said he wished Boris Johnson well in his current negotiations, although he added: ‘If people in Parliament had voted for the deal Theresa May put together we’d have Brexited by now and perhaps we’d have more certainty.’
Samantha and David Cameron photographed backstage at the This Morning studios in Lonson
It comes after Mr Cameron spoke to BBC Radio 4 this morning, praising John Humphrys’ lifetime of broadcasting during the interviewer’s final show.
And the former PM has extended an olive branch to Michael Gove, saying he wants to try to rekindle the close friendship that was blown apart by Brexit.
In his autobiography published today, the former prime minister savages Mr Gove for his decision to back the Leave campaign in 2016 which finished his career in No 10.
But Mr Cameron said yesterday ‘a lot of water has flown under the bridge’ since the pair’s spectacular public fallout.
In his autobiography, For the Record, Mr Cameron accuses Mr Gove of betrayal. He said he was shocked by the ‘ferocity and mendacity’ of his attacks on the Government during the campaign, accusing him of becoming ‘an ambassador for the post-truth age’.
The row severed a close friendship between the Gove and Cameron families which extended well beyond politics and saw the two families share the school run and holiday together.
Michael Gove told tonight’s BBC documentary that Mr Cameron had believed that he would put their friendship before campaigning to leave the EU.
He said: ‘I think it is the case that David hoped that I would support him but I had been sceptical about our position in Europe for a very long time. I was always one of these people who thought that fundamentally it had been wrong to enter the European Union in the first place.
‘I think that David understandably thought that I had been prepared to knuckle under on a number of occasions beforehand and put aside my personal feeling to serve the team that on this occasion then I would do the same’.
But Mr Cameron suggests he is ready to bury the hatchet with his former friend.
David Cameron (pictured) today extends an olive branch to Michael Gove, saying he wants to try to rekindle the close friendship that was blown apart by Brexit
David Cameron and Michael Gove are pictured applauding a speech by Boris Johnson at the Conservative conference in 2015
He says he was moved by a heartfelt article by Mr Gove’s wife, Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine, in which she lamented the breakdown of a 20-year friendship between the two families.
Writing in the Mail yesterday, she described how the two families had shared their lives together for two decades, but had not spoken since Brexit tore them apart in February 2016.
Miss Vine, godmother to the Camerons’ daughter Florence, describes them as ‘dear friends who were there at key moments of my life’.
She added: ‘Hard as these past few years have been, nothing will ever erase those memories. Because that is what really matters: people. Not politics, not power, not Brexit.
‘We make mistakes and we move on. Or at least we should try.’
Asked about her comments, Mr Cameron said: ‘I was coming back from my book launch with Samantha and it popped up on my screen, and we both read it, and we both actually thought it was incredibly sensitive and well written and rather emotional piece.
‘Look, over time I hope that – a lot of water has flown under the bridge – but it just was very difficult at the time of the referendum.’
Asked if he would like to rekindle the relationship, he replied: ‘I want to try. I think the difficulty has just been that, Michael was a very, very close member of the team.
‘He was so central to my thinking on education reform and other things, and so watching what happened next was very painful and I did in some ways thought he’d become quite a different person in all of it. But as I say, life goes on.’
Samantha Cameron and Michael Gove’s wife Sarah Vine in the Palace of Westminster
Mr Cameron and Mr Gove in May 2010 during the coalition negotiations that ended with the Tory leader forming a government with the Liberal Democrats
In a wide-ranging interview, Mr Cameron also dismisses a controversial attack on him by the Guardian. In an editorial, for which it has since apologised, the newspaper claimed he had suffered only ‘privileged pain’ over the death of his disabled son Ivan. The newspaper questioned whether the former PM ‘might have understood the damage his policies have done’ if he had sought care for ‘a dying parent rather than a dying child’.
It went on: ‘Mr Cameron has known pain and failure in his life but it has always been limited failure and privileged pain.
‘His experience of the NHS, which looked after his severely disabled son, has been that of the better functioning and better funded parts of the system.’
Mr Cameron said: ‘There is no privilege in holding your eldest-born child in your arms as their life drains away. Death knows no privilege. So I, from the little I saw of it, I couldn’t understand what they were trying to say, but fortunately it has been deleted and apologised for, so I think we can leave it there.’
Mr Cameron also hits out at Commons Speaker John Bercow, who has been a constant thorn in the side of the Government over Brexit. ‘There were times, I have to admit, when I… sort of got out of bed every morning and thought, whatever John Bercow, whatever the speaker can do to make my life hell today, he will do. And that, on the whole, was a pretty good guide to life.’
Mr Cameron also speaks of his remorse over his handling of the referendum and the EU negotiation that preceded it, saying: ‘I’ll go to my grave wondering, could I have got more in the negotiation?’
But he refuses to rule out a second referendum, saying: ‘I don’t think you can because we can’t go on being stuck. We’ve had a three-year hiatus and it’s very painful for the country and difficult for business and difficult for people and I feel it very intensely.
‘We can’t go on like this so we’ve got to have either a deal, another deal, an election or a referendum.