The Loneliness of David Cameron

Inside his 10 Downing Street office, David Cameron has surrounded himself with friends of two decades or more—contemporaries from his time at Eton and Oxford and his early days as a political researcher. Once he steps outside his front door, the 46-year-old prime minister’s life is lonelier. In Parliament lawmakers from his Conservative Party are rebelling in unprecedented numbers and with increasing frequency. Conservative newspapers, which once feted him, have turned hostile. If there were an election tomorrow, voters say they’d back the Labour Party, which enjoys a 10-point advantage in the polls.

Cameron’s signature policy—an austerity plan meant to wipe out the structural budget deficit by the 2015 election—has caused pain among voters and is certain to cause more. The government will have implemented £37 billion ($59.11 billion), less than a third of the £126 billion of cuts planned, by the end of the fiscal year. Welfare payments for housing have been capped, forcing some poor people to move out of expensive areas such as London. Pay has been frozen for police, teachers, nurses, doctors, and other public-sector workers.