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Political and cultural London is buzzing with the news that archaeologists have discovered amazing relics from a lost era which will now form a major exhibition. Word of the find came with the announcement that a fully intact George Osborne, the former chancellor, had been found under a pile of money at a boutique investment bank.
Osborne has now been installed as the centrepiece of a new exhibition at the British Museum, among other fossilised remains of the Cameron government. So significant is the find that Osborne has even been named chair of the museum, a ceremonial role that mostly involves raising money and refusing to give the Greeks back the Elgin Marbles.
Finding Osborne, who had been entombed in a gold-lined office surrounded by artefacts of his previous greatness, gives historians a complete picture of the lost Cameron government, a once-mighty regime that disappeared almost overnight and whose legacy and treasures were purged from official Conservative party history. The now lost civilisation of David Cameron was then regarded as a period of great enlightenment, liberalism and modernity — as long as you were not reliant on public services.
Historians date the period from roughly 15BB (Before Brexit), also known as 2005, when the mythical Cameron took over the leadership of his battered tribe, to June of 4BB, or 2016, when an electoral Vesuvius doomed the prime minister.
Cameron vanished, although Conservative ministers were occasionally subjected to a blizzard of texts about something called supply chain finance, which none of them understood. So complete was the disappearance that many in the later Boris Johnson government took to talking of the Cameron administration as if it were that of a different political party. The display will feature the shepherd’s hut into which the politically shattered Cameron retreated after his Brexit defeat to write his memoirs, almost all copies of which survive at his publishers.
But of perhaps greater significance are the many values mostly lost under his successors. Visitors will marvel at the policy of cosying up to China and the badge saying “Beijing’s BFF in the westâ€, which all ministers were required to wear when visiting the country. And not talking about the Dalai Lama.
Museum-goers may be astonished to discover that as recently as 2015 the Conservative party did not hate the metropolitan elite and was keen to give the impression of modernity. There will also be a vitrine spotlighting High Speed 2, but unfortunately it has run over budget and may not open until 2035.
A room is devoted to Cameron’s pet project, the Big Society. As yet the display is empty but curators say it was one of Cameron’s “big ideasâ€, so they are sure it is only a matter of time before they find evidence of its existence.
There is, unhappily, plenty of evidence of the impact of the austerity policies pursued by the government during that time, but apparently the new chair of the museum feels there may not be room for it in the exhibition.
Perhaps most remarkable are the exhibits devoted to Cameron’s plan to end the Tory obsession with Europe, which in one sense he achieved, though not the way he intended. A poignant piece is the handwritten note from Chancellor Merkel of Germany promising to resist the candidacy of Jean-Claude Juncker for European Commission president. It sits in a large file entitled “Problems Angela will fixâ€.
Some have been surprised that a government so keen to break with the Cameron era would appoint Osborne to such an important cultural role. But the ex-chancellor, who has taken on numerous posts since leaving office, studiously maintained good relations with the Johnson regime even as it ditched every policy he ever believed in, on the obviously wise precaution that you never know where your ninth job is going to come from.
Follow Robert on Twitter @robertshrimsley and email him at robert.shrimsley@ft.com
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