Former prime minister Herbert Asquith once said of the Chequers Estate that it “is what the holder chooses and is able to make of it”. This statement was never truer than under the premiership of David Cameron, spanning 2010 to 2016.
Being prime minister from 1908 to 1916, Asquith never had the opportunity to enjoy the luxury of Chequers for himself, but that was not the case for Cameron, and he proceeded to make the most of his good fortune.
Before the 2016 referendum on EU membership and the UK electorate’s decision to leave the bloc drove a lasting wedge between Cameron and ardent leaver, Michael Gove, the two were very good friends. Indeed, Cameron and his wife, Samantha, invited Gove and his wife, Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine, to the Chequers Estate to celebrate Christmas and New Year back in 2010, the year Cameron was elected.
Penning her experiences of Chequers in the Daily Mail, Vine told of how the former prime minister was in awe of both the “excitement and privilege” of the house, proceeding to supply his guests with an “endless supply of White Ladies [cocktails]” to sip on.
Some of the many relics that have been held at the estate since Sir Arthur Lee handed it over to the government also caught the attention of the guests. Vine paid particular attention to Oliver Cromwell’s death mask, before experiencing the so-called “prison room” in the estate. The room does carry historic significance in that Lady Mary Grey was confined there by Queen Elizabeth I after marrying without the monarch’s consent.
Vine went on to describe how the Camerons procured a karaoke machine on New Year’s Eve, a night which she called a “uniquely special experience” and “an honour”, having been able to enjoy the old estate in a very different way than perhaps what Sir Arthur Lee will have had in mind.
It would not be the only time that David Cameron would raise the decibels in the old house. Four years later, in the advent period of December 2014, he hosted what the Daily Mail’s Sebastian Shakespeare dubbed an “Ibiza-style rave” on the old estate, which doubled up as an early Christmas party and a belated birthday celebration for wife Samantha – belated it certainly was, considering her birthday was in April.
An evening which promised “cocktails and curry” on the invites, the guests that night ranged from actress Helena Bonham Carter to comedian Harry Enfield and former Top Gear frontman Jeremy Clarkson.
The old estate had probably never seen anything quite like old Etonian David Cameron’s premiership, and whether it will do so again remains to be seen.
