David Cameron rules out third term as prime minister

On the BBC News profile just broadcast on the 6 0’clock news, David Cameron rules out a third term. The words will now trigger a wave of speculation about what that quite means.

There has long been speculation that David Cameron would not serve a full second term if re-elected as PM. The answer will be seen as proof that’s his plan. No. 10 sources say that is not true. They say that David Cameron if he walked back through the door of No. 10 after the general election would serve every single day of his second term.  That’s quite tricky, to say the least.

You don’t hand over the baton on your way out on dissolution day 2020 (if the next government got that far). You hand it over earlier so your successor beds in. It is an echo of the problem Tony Blair got into when he wanted to reassure voters that he wouldn’t go “on and on” but didn’t want to turn himself into a lame duck. In September Blair said in 2004 he would not serve a full term and not be leader by the time of the next election. His “full term” ended up as two years.

No. 10 will hope this shows the sane side of David Cameron – not a political obsessive, willing to let go. They maintain that unlike all the other painstakingly crafted images of the PM at the butchers, watching his son play football and preparing lunch in one of his kitchens, this was a spontaneous outburst of honesty by Mr Cameron and not pre-scripted.

It’s hard to see how the list of possible successors wasn’t thought through carefully. He lists – in a very particular and no doubt carefully rehearsed order – Theresa May, George Osborne and Boris Johnson as possible future leaders of his party.

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