Shortly after Number 10's announcement that David Cameron was heading to the Foreign Office, Coral the bookmaker sent out a press release saying they had slashed the odds of him becoming the next Tory leader.
He went from being a 100-1 outsider to a more respectable, but still unlikely 28-1.
However, if you’re reading this and find yourself tempted to punt a fiver or two on Chipping Norton’s newest Baron leading what the polls suggest will be a rump of a party in opposition, can I suggest that instead, you hand your cash over to The Herald’s Christmas appeal for the Scottish Book Trust.
Not only is it a better deal, you’ll get far more of a return on your investment.
Read more: Tory voters must wonder what kind of freak show the party has become
The keyword for Rishi Sunak’s reshuffle was competence, Tory sources were saying on Monday.
He wants to surround himself with competent ministers, who can deliver competent government.
What does it say to the current crop of Tory MPs that to find a competent Foreign Secretary he had to recruit David Cameron?
That’s not to say the former prime minister isn’t a good choice for the post. Even Alex Salmond, no great pal of the ex-Tory boss, said he’d be “one of the few adults in the Cabinet Room.”
David Cameron (above) is back in Government
It’s just a bit embarrassing for the Prime Minister that there's nobody in the Commons up to the job. It's even more embarrassing given that just weeks ago at his party conference he touted himself as the candidate for change after 13 years of Tory government.
Instead of change, he’s gone for nostalgia.
The PM will be hoping this jettisoning of the Tory right, and adoption of a more pragmatic, pre-2016 not-quite-as-right-wing government will shore up his traditional vote, do something to stop it going away to the Lib Dems in the so-called Blue Wall.
However, the problem for Sunak is that the Ghost of Christmas Past he’s just recruited has, well, a past.
The obvious is Brexit, the referendum and his role as the leader of the campaign to Remain. There's also his push for closer ties with China, which many of his colleagues now regret.
The real baggage for Cameron is his work for Greensill Capital.
There are still questions over the collapse of the investment firm, and his attempts to get what were then his ex-colleagues in government to keep it afloat with billions of pounds of public money.
Mr Cameron was an adviser to the supply chain finance business, earning around £720,000 a year.
His role only emerged after Greensill collapsed in March 2021 due to its exposure to GFG Alliance, a group of companies controlled by the steel magnate Sanjeev Gupta.
It’s worth noting that the Serious Fraud Office is still investigating the Gupta business empire and, in particular, its financing arrangements with Greensill Capital.
David Cameron and his wife, Samantha, (above) during his time as Prime Minister
Earlier this year, Lex Greensill, the firm’s founder and Cameron’s former employer, was named as a suspect in a Swiss criminal case.
Germany's financial watchdog has also filed a criminal complaint against the management of Greensill's German banking arm.
Then there was the work Cameron did for the firm in Saudi Arabia when he and Greensill went on a camping trip accompanied by the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
This all happened just months after the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
In 2021, the Treasury select committee said it had been inappropriate for the ex-prime minister to have sent 62 messages to former colleagues pleading for them to help the bank, in which he also owned stock options.
Read more: The survival of this Tory government is a threat to public security
The report said that while Cameron did not break lobbying rules, that was more to do with “the insufficient strength of the rules”
He had, they added, shown a “significant lack of judgment.”
One of the reasons we’re hearing for Cameron's comeback to government is to allow the PM to focus on the domestic while his predecessor takes care of the international.
There’s a danger here though that questions over Cameron’s domestic difficulties could get in the way of the international work.
Which is ironic, because by putting him in the Lords, the one thing MPs won't be able to do in the Commons, is ask David Cameron questions.
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