SARAH VINE: David Cameron’s a decent egg who makes a mean White Lady. But if Rishi Sunak wants to resurrect the ghost of any PM past, he might be better off with the one who won an 80-seat majority

A fellow ex-political spouse messages: ‘The Chipping Snorton set on the loose in Chevening [the Foreign Secretary’s country residence]? Me sees trouble ahead.’ I reply with a laughing emoji, then add: ‘Who knows? But one thing’s for sure: you can’t keep a good toff down.’

Actually, I don’t think the return of David Cameron to frontline politics is entirely a bad thing, however unexpected it might be.

He’s a decent egg, Dave, whatever people say about him, whatever your views on Brexit, whatever differences he and I may have had in the past. A skilled diplomat, a consummate networker, he radiates confidence and ability — and mixes a mean White Lady.

If you happen to find yourself in a bit of a pickle, he’s the kind of chap you call. And there’s no doubt that a bit of a pickle is what Rishi Sunak is in.

My guess is he hopes that Dave, with his emollience and easy charm, will bring some much-needed calm to proceedings: act as a kind of political Savlon to the Tory party’s festering wounds.

It’s a compelling idea. The issue, though, is that the mere application of some Old Etonian balm is unlikely to heal the patient, who — metaphorically speaking — has just spent the past few months having a limb slowly sawn off by a teaspoon.

David Cameron led the country as PM in the Coalition government from 2010 to 2015

Cameron may be officer class but whether he (and other centrist big beasts who stand behind him, namely William Hague, who I’m told helped broker the role) can rally the troops in time for the fast-approaching General Election is doubtful. If they can, all credit to them. But it’s going to take a miracle.

The main difficulty is that, however capable Rishi’s new Cabinet may be on paper, they’ve just run out of road. They don’t have time to make any material differences before the clock strikes midnight, they all turn into pumpkins and it’s time for a General Election.

Bringing Cameron back may trigger memories of happier Tory government for some. But for just as many, he remains a divisive figure: the man who let the genie of the EU referendum out of the bottle, and in so doing created a schism that split the country and the party in ways from which neither has truly recovered.

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As much as I respect him, to my mind his appointment feels like a slightly desperate attempt to rekindle former glories — just when the party should be moving boldly forwards, not retreating inwards to strike cosy clubroom deals over vintage cognac.

Where is the boldness, the excitement? Above all, where is the vision, that spark to ignite and galvanise both the parliamentary party and the grassroots?

The truth is, neither Sunak nor Cameron is especially Conservative with a capital C — though they are conservatives with a small c. Both are risk-averse and managerial. With rare exceptions, they try not to let emotion take hold of the decision-making process. They adhere to broad principles of conservatism, but they are pragmatists above all.

It’s by no means a bad thing — in fact, given current tensions in the Middle East and Russia, and polarisation of debate on our streets and social media, it’s probably a good idea to pivot to a calmer, more prosaic style of politics.

The trouble is that while the timing may be right for a more vanilla approach in terms of day-to-day government, it doesn’t work in practical terms. We are perhaps months away from a General Election: people don’t want soft-scoop, they want something a bit crunchier. They want ideas and vision: something to get them out of bed on a cold, rainy dark morning and down to the polling booth.

Sarah Vine: The truth is, neither Sunak nor Cameron is especially Conservative with a capital C

After leading the Remain campaign to defeat (top) instead of what he thought would be a comfortable victory he swiftly quit No10 – and then Parliament – in humiliation in 2016

Sarah Vine: Bringing Cameron back may trigger memories of happier Tory government for some. (David Cameron with his wife Samantha)

Sunak just hasn’t delivered that. As Suella Braverman said in her uncompromising letter to the Prime Minister yesterday, ‘Someone needs to be honest: your plan is not working, we have endured record election defeats, your resets have failed and we are running out of time.’

If the Conservatives are going to have any chance of beating Labour — already a long-shot — they need to lean in and be more Tory, not less so. They need to put clear blue water between them and Keir Starmer’s party, not muddy things by pulling back from key policies in areas such as immigration and law and order in a desperate attempt to appease their critics, who are never going to vote for them anyway. On Monday, after all this happened and bored by watching people pontificating on the news, I poured myself a glass of cabernet sauvignon and sat down to watch Shakespeare: Rise Of A Genius, on BBC2.

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Predictably, it was a bit of a luvvie-fest, but there were some very insightful moments, not least from another former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. I had no idea Brown was an aficionado of the Bard, but then few people understood more about human nature or indeed politics than the great writer, so I guess it makes sense.

And he said something very interesting, did Mr Brown.

Talking about Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar and the differences between Caesar’s great ally, Mark Antony, and the most famous of Caesar’s assassins, Brutus, Brown made the point that ‘you fight elections in verse, you govern in prose’.

To illustrate this, Brown explains, Shakespeare set Mark Antony’s speech in verse, whereas Brutus’s, he set in prose. Brutus makes an eloquent enough case — but it is Mark Antony who persuades the people thanks to magnificent oratory skills that Shakespeare bestows on him in that famous speech: ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears…’

In other words, to win in politics – it doesn’t necessarily matter what you say, it’s how you say it: whether you can ignite passions, inspire loyalty, move people’s hearts as well as their minds.

Shakespeare understood this centuries ago. And the truth is, nothing has really changed.

That’s why Boris Johnson won such a stonking majority in 2019.

For all his many flaws, he was the Tories’ Mark Antony: he knew how to light a fire in the hearts of the electorate. Yes, he infuriated some people — but he had such devoted support from the rest, it didn’t matter. Millions came out for him.

Margaret Thatcher was the same. Churchill, too. All flawed characters, in their different ways — but all, to a greater or lesser extent, visionaries.

Sunak and Cameron are hardworking, serious people.

They both have solid moral compasses and a capacity to get things done. They are the kind of responsible, grown-up politicians that you want running a country.

But they are not — or at least have never shown themselves to be — visionaries. And that’s what you need to win an election.

The most pressing task the Tories now face is persuading the electorate to stick with them, to give them another chance.

I sincerely hope they succeed.

But I can’t help thinking that if Sunak was going to resurrect the ghost of any Prime Minister past, he might have been better off choosing the one who inspired an 80-seat majority — and not the one who lost a referendum and then walked away.

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