COVENTRY MESSAGE BOARD

David Cameron is standing down as MP for Witney, triggering a by-election in the Oxfordshire seat.



Mr Cameron's decision comes two months after he quit as Prime Minister on July 13 in the wake of defeat in the EU referendum.

David Cameron has told ITV that he has spent the summer weighing up his position.

"I have thought about this long and hard over the summer and I have decided the right thing to do is to stand down as the member of parliament for Witney. There will be a byelection. I will give the Conservative candidate my full support.

"But in my view, with modern politics, with the circumstances of my resignation it isn’t really possible to be a proper backbench MP as a former prime minister.I think everything you do will become a big distraction and a big diversion from what the government needs to do for our country. And I support Theresa May. I think she’s got off to a great start. I think she can be a strong prime minister for our country. And I don’t want to be that distraction. I want Witney to have a new MP who can play a full part in parliamentary and political life without being a distraction.

"I want to thank everybody here in West Oxfordshire who has been so supportive. It has been a great honour and privilege to serve this area and to serve these brilliant people. I’m going to go on living locally. I will go on supporting the local causes and charities that make this such a great place in our country. But obviously I’m going to have to start to build a life outside Westminster. I hope I’ll continue to contribute in terms of public service and of course contribute to this country that I love so much."

MPs attack Cameron over Libya 'collapse'

A UK parliamentary report has severely criticised the intervention by Britain and France that led to the overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The foreign affairs committee accused the then PM David Cameron of lacking a coherent strategy for the air campaign.

It said the intervention had not been "informed by accurate intelligence", and that it led to the rise of so-called Islamic State in North Africa.

An international coalition led by Britain and France launched a campaign of air and missile strikes against Muammar Gaddafi's forces in March 2011 after the regime threatened to attack the rebel-held city of Benghazi.

But after Gaddafi was toppled, Libya descended into violence, with rival governments and the formation of hundreds of militias, while so-called Islamic State, also known as Isil, has gained a foothold.

Mr Cameron has defended his handling of the situation, telling MPs in January action was needed because Gaddafi "was bearing down on people in Benghazi and threatening to shoot his own people like rats".

But the foreign affairs committee said the government "failed to identify that the threat to civilians was overstated", adding that it "selectively took elements of Gaddafi's rhetoric at face value".

The government also failed to identify the "militant Islamist extremist element in the rebellion", the MPs said.

"The possibility that militant extremist groups would attempt to benefit from the rebellion should not have been the preserve of hindsight," the committee said, adding: "UK strategy was founded on erroneous assumptions and an incomplete understanding of the evidence."

Cameron's £20,000 Golden Goodbye: Ex-PM pockets a tax free payoff... plus a gold-plated pension

David Cameron chose to pocket a taxpayer-funded golden goodbye worth nearly £20,000 when he walked out of Downing Street, the Mail can reveal.

The millionaire former prime minister took the tax-free ministerial payoff when he quit after losing the EU referendum, Whitehall sources said.

It is left up to departing PMs to decide whether or not to take the public money – and he did so, while also handing out bumper payoffs to his aides and cronies.

Details of the sum emerged after Mr Cameron announced on Monday he was quitting as an MP.

They will compound concerns over his use of public money in his final days in office. It follows revelations he showered his advisors with severance deals to which they were not legally entitled.

In his last days in No10, Mr Cameron over-ruled civil servants to increase the already generous exit payments for his political staff by a third, pushing the total cost to more than £1million.

Many of the beneficiaries were then handed gongs or peerages in his much-criticised resignation honours list, including spin chief Sir Craig Oliver.

Yesterday it was revealed Mr Cameron’s staff were ringing around estate agents in central London to find new offices for their boss.

Mr Cameron is said to be focusing on his memoirs, for which he is expected to secure a seven-figure advance. Tony Blair was reportedly paid £4.6million for his.

The costs of Mr Cameron’s new base outside politics are also likely to fall on the taxpayer. Like all former prime ministers, he is entitled to more than £115,000 a year to run his private office.

The ‘Public Duties Cost Allowance’ covers the cost of offices and secretarial staff to pay for what official documents call the ‘special position in public life’ occupied by former inhabitants of 10 Downing Street.

It is currently claimed by all of Mr Cameron’s predecessors.

Mr Cameron’s lump sum payoff was calculated at one quarter of his ministerial salary. It is thought his will come to £17,125, one quarter of the £68,500 he received for being PM as of April 2016.He was also paid £74,962 to be an MP.

Mr Cameron could have also claimed a full non-contributory prime ministerial pension which would have paid him £80,000 a year immediately upon leaving office.

However, he waived this entitlement to claim a package similar to that of other ministers. Like them, he received the immediate payout and will then get a ministerial pension when he hits 65.

And like all departing MPs, Mr Cameron can also claim £40,000 by way of relocation allowance expenses, to pay for removals and staff costs as he winds down his Parliamentary office.