Sunak's impossible Tory chemistry test

The PM has lurched from one strategy reset to another - but none have healed party divisions

- Toby Helm

Dressed in a crimson velvet cloak, trimmed and lined with white ermine, and flanked by two senior  Conservative peers, Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, the new foreign secretary, was formally introduced into the House of Lords on Monday amid all the colour and splendour that the second chamber affords.

The former prime minister, who everyone thought had bid a final farewell to Westminster in 2016 after the humiliation of the Brexit referendum, delivered his maiden speech the next day in a debate on international trade. It could go down as the political comeback of the year, if not the decade.

The imagery of the return of an ex-PM who left under such a cloud, and was subsequently embroiled in a major lobbying scandal, may not be perfect for Rishi Sunak, as he attempts his latest leadership reset.

But something had to be done. The Tories were in a death spiral. "Suella [Braverman] was mad and taking us down," said one Conservative MP.  "This was what Rishi came up with. It may help, it may not."

The decision stunned everyone in the Tory party, including good friends of the former occupant of No 10, and those who had served in his governments. "David always had a thing, I thought, about not wanting to be in the Lords. Yes, I was surprised," said one ally, now in the upper house. "Like Major, Blair, Brown, he didn't seem to want to do it, having been prime minister."

Negotiations on the comeback were kept as the tightest of secrets in Downing Street. Only two or three people are said to have known anything, apart from Sunak and Cameron himself.

Former Tory leader William Hague is believed to have been the key interlocutor, and to have convinced Cameron that a stint as foreign secretary (Hague had been in the job under Cameron) would be a good way to restore his reputation at home and abroad and conclude his career on a high note.