The Queen is not amused with what David Cameron revealed. Photo / Getty Images
The Queen is not amused with what David Cameron revealed. Photo / Getty Images
Former British Prime Minister David Cameron has landed in hot water with the monarchy over his disclosures about his relationship with the Queen in his autobiography.
Cameron's For The Record was published on Thursday to much fanfare given it's the first time the former Prime Minister — who presided overthe 2016 Brexit referendum — has spoken about the event and its aftermath.
The weighty 703 page book he wrote in his pimped-out "shepherd's hut" dishes the inside world on his six years in office. It covers everything from internal Conservative Party politics to the rise of ISIS, the Scottish independence referendum and the painful death of his eldest son.
But it's his comments about the 93-year-old monarch that have caught the public imagination and made headlines in Britain.
In a BBC interview accompanying publication, Cameron revealed he sought her majesty's help ahead of the 2014 Scottish independence vote. He said he had asked the Queen whether she could "raise an eyebrow" about what leaving the UK might mean for Scots.
He said what was discussed with the Queen's officials was not "anything that would be in any way improper … but just a raising of the eyebrow even … a quarter of an inch."
A royal source said it "serves no one's interests" for conversations between the monarch and the PM to be made public.
"It makes it very hard for the relationship to thrive," the palace source said.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said the result of the Brexit referendum haunts him to this day. Photo / Getty Images
But Cameron did not stop there. His book contains details about holidaying at Balmoral where the Queen will drive at "breakneck speed" across the countryside and host a barbecue with Prince Philip where the Duke will flip burgers before cleaning up.
"Literally, the Queen of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth Realms topping up your drinks, clearing up your plates and washing up," he wrote.
The former PM also revealed the essential preparation for the famous "audience" the Queen has held with every Prime Minister since Winston Churchill.
"One: always check the BBC headlines, in case you've missed something (I usually turned up just after the 6 o'clock news, and in any event, she is phenomenally well-informed).
"Two: always check what's going on in the horse racing world. A quick call to Tom Goff, my racing expert friend, would bring me up to speed on whether one of the Queen's horses had won that week, or another had recently had a foal. Her knowledge of the turf is prodigious.
"During a separate conversation, the week after my father died, the Queen said how sorry she was, and asked if his horse was running at Windsor that evening. It was. I had absolutely no idea about it, and was completely lost for words."
He said the Queen was "better informed than most politicians" and he would always leave with a "spring in his step".
The relationship between the Prime Minister and the Queen is famously off-limits for discussion with the public and the Queen will never intervene in political affairs beyond her formal role of giving royal assent to new laws and appointing new Prime Ministers in the UK.
The Queen's relationship with the PM is famously sacrosanct. Photo / Getty Images
In addition to the royal news, Cameron's book contains a range of revelations from throughout his tenure as prime minister. Here are some of the best:
On the Brexit referendum
"The strategy failed. I had failed. And that failure has had some serious consequences for the UK and Europe. But it all flowed from an attempt to do the right thing."
"We made some big mistakes in the campaign — I won't deny it. Nor will I play the blame game; this was a referendum of my making, and a campaign of my choosing. I think about it every day and turn it all over in my head."
"My regrets about what had happened went deep. I knew then that they would never leave me. And they never have."
"I do not regret holding the referendum, but I deeply regret the result, and I still think Brexit is the wrong path for our country. The best deal for Britain was the one we had, the one I renegotiated. Anything else does not give us the best of both worlds that my deal was built on."
On resigning after the result
He said he knew he "would have to leave."
"Staying on would be simply be delaying the acceptance of a political death that had already taken place."
His wife Samantha Cameron accompanied him to the podium as he set out to resign, but had to have a nip of Dutch courage beforehand.
"'She said 'I just don't think I can go out there — I feel terrible' and had a stiff gin at 10 past eight in the morning."
On the death of his son, Ivan
Cameron opened up about the death of his eldest son, Ivan, who died in 2009 at age six after suffering from Ohtahara syndrome — a rare condition that left him unable to move, speak and suffering horrendous seizures.
"He could have 20 or 30 (seizures) in a day, lasting for minutes, or sometimes hours, his small frame racked with spasms and what looked like searing pain.
"By the end his clothes would be drenched in sweat and his poor little body exhausted."
He said he died after suffering a "massive organ failure" one day and doctors were unable to revive him.
"We had always known this might happen, but nothing, absolutely nothing, can prepare you for the reality of losing your darling boy in this way.
It was as if the world stopped turning. Explaining what had happened to the children was so hard, because they were so young.
"You never fully recover from the loss of a child. But you can steadily learn to cope. I threw myself back into my work as a way of trying to manage. When I look back, I realise I started working again too quickly. For a while I was too fragile and not in the right state of mind to make decisions. Nothing else seemed to matter alongside what we had lost."
On legalising gay marriage
"It was an issue that I would worry and even wobble over. But I have absolutely no regrets, and it is one of the things of which I'm proudest."
On Obama's inaction over Syria
"I put a call to Obama to discuss what course of action to take. For four days I waited for him to call back. Four days. A large scale chemical attack happened midweek, and the leaders of the two of the world's biggest military powers and the world's supposedly strongest two-nation alliance didn't speak until the weekend."
On claims he put his penis in a pig
"Even the most creative (or lewd) among us couldn't have dreamt up its most widely reported claim — the one that came to dominate the book's serialisation and publicity — which was that I'd done something disgusting to a dead pig at a university society initiation.
Samantha Cameron had a stiff gin in the morning before going out to face the press. Photo / Getty Images
"Here I can reveal the truth about that story … My first reaction wasn't anger, or embarrassment, or worry about the impact. It was hilarity. I couldn't believe someone could be so stupid as to research and write a book about me, and include a story that was both false and ludicrous."
"This was despite (or even perhaps, depressingly, thanks to) his protectionist, misogynistic interventions. He seemed unlikely to beat the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton … but hadn't our referendum taught us to expect the unexpected. Hadn't the success of the Brexiteers, as well as, the rise of the far-left and hard right parties in Europe shown us that anti-Establishment, divisive, populist politics was the new normal?"
On swearing in front of the Queen
Cameron had his first brush with the Queen as a schoolboy at Heatherdown Preparatory School in Berkshire where he blurted out "oh shit!" when he realised he had forgotten to say "thanks be to God" at the end of a carol service. The Queen was in the front row.
On the Scottish independence referendum
"The issue of a referendum was unavoidable. People had voted for it; we would deliver it. We would fight to keep the UK together, and we would have to do it soon — within the parliament."
