Smooth David Cameron was brought back to bolster Britain abroad – but it hasn’t worked

The former prime minister was supposed to add some heft to foreign policy. Ahead of the G7 summit, John Rentoul looks beyond his silky communication skills and asks: what’s he really achieved?

Like Rishi Sunak, Cameron has been guilty of overclaiming (EPA)

David Cameron “knows he’s got a limited time to make a difference – and he’s really going for it”, according to Peter Ricketts, the crossbench peer who served as national security adviser in the coalition government.

It was a great coup for Rishi Sunak to recruit the former prime minister as foreign secretary – who can forget the yelp of surprise from Kay Burley on Sky News’s live coverage when old smoothie-chops himself emerged from the car in Downing Street in November’s cabinet reshuffle.

There was certainly a strong case for using Cameron’s silky communication skills and personal contacts with world leaders to upgrade Britain’s presence abroad. Not that James Cleverly was doing a bad job – some Foreign Office officials who were initially sceptical about him, thinking him a lightweight, were surprised by how good he was at a glad-handing role that he so obviously enjoyed.