Professor Theakston co-authored an article about David Cameron on LSE British Politics and Policy blog

This article applies a critical reading of Stephen Skowronek’s account of leadership in ‘political time’ to evaluate David Cameron’s premiership.

Professor Kevin Theakston from the School of Politics and International Studies has co-authored an article about David Cameron’s time as Prime Minister and the legacy left behind on the LSE British Politics and Policy blog.

Theakston and colleagues argue that despite being relatively skilful in meeting many challenges inherited from New Labour, Cameron ‘failed to establish a clear policy vision’ with the ‘Big Society’. 

They argue much of his successes came from lowering the expectations by ‘magnifying the economic difficulties he inherited’, which he did in a way which proved more successful than those before him, resulting in his re-election in 2015. However for Theakston et al., cracks started to appear in Cameron’s second term, until the undoing of his premiership with the 2016 EU referendum result.

The blog post argues that the legacy David Cameron left behind is more vulnerable than ever. It has left Theresa May with a big challenge, not least with post-Brexit negotiations and managing demands on immigration reform as well as trade access in the European markets.

You can read the full blog post here or access the related academic paper here.