Cameron chillaxes in his man cave

published 5 May 2017

Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are busy hitting the election trail in a desperate search for votes. Meanwhile, free from the burdens of office, David Cameron, the former holder of the office they both covet, is "chillaxing" and writing his memoirs in a new bespoke £25,000 garden shed bought from Red Sky Shepherd's Huts. It's not just any old garden shed: it has "a timber-frame construction with tongue-and-groove interior pine walls", according to Red Sky's blog, and is "fully wired with LED lights, dimmers and outside lights". It also has "a corner-set wood-burning stove from Salamander, a pull-out double sofa bed and paints from Farrow & Ball".

"Who could begrudge a man a shed?" asks Suzanne Moore in The Guardian. After all, the former prime minister clearly needs it "because he doesn't have enough space in either of his houses". Cameron's extravagant tastes should not be that surprising when you take into account that, "out of the 29 people in his Cabinet, 18 were millionaires", with a combined wealth that "was estimated to be more than £70m". Meanwhile, "while he cogitates in a fake folksy hut in the Cotswolds", the rest of us "are living with the consequences" of the policy decisions that he took during his time in office, complains Moore.

Cameron is not alone in wanting an expensive garden hide-away. "These rustic cabins on wheels have become the favoured garden rooms of the Farrow & Ball classes," says Katrina Burroughs in The Sunday Times. The Camerons "discovered the joys of these structures" after a visit to Cameron's wife's mother in Scotland, but before he was allowed to pick up the phone to place an order, David had to get the "green light" from his wife, "who wears the trousers on all aesthetic issues".

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If anything, Cameron has been relatively restrained. Richard Lee, a rival hut-maker, sells his most basic model for £10,000, but he has built huts "fitted with saunas and kitted out as home offices, holiday lets and spare bedrooms" for clients with more money, he tells The Daily Telegraph. Even Lee has to draw the line somewhere, though: "customers will ask for one 25-foot long, and I say no". Other experts argue that a mobile shed can actually make money in the long run, as "all you've got to do is hook it up to an electric supply, and you've got an instant extension".

In any case, Cameron's dreams of being able to use the hut as his own hideaway seem to be fading. There's already been "a bit of a fight" over ownership, according to Red Sky's blog. David wanted it for writing his memoirs, but some of his children wanted it as a Wendy house and his son as another bedroom. Indeed, "when it first arrived, there was great excitement who was going to spend the first night in it"? That competition was apparently won by Cameron's son. "I wasn't going to take him on!" he said.

No doubt he's nervous of any new fights following his Brexit bruising. What are these new memoirs of his going to be called, wondered The Guardian. The Greatest Blunder Of Any Postwar Prime Minister? "Now you're just being silly."

Tabloid money driven to the Lib Dems by Boris the Brexiteer

"As I say to my brother [foreign secretary Boris Johnson] every time I see him the reason I've gone as far as to join [the Lib Dems] is because the goods the Brexiteers showed us in the referendum bill of sale have so far turned out to be faulty," says Rachel Johnson in The Mail on Sunday. He said we'd be at the front of the queue for a trade deal with the US, and we're not. "There is to be no regular injection of £350m for the NHS." We are leaving the EU to take control of our borders, and yet Brexit secretary David Davis said we need migration to thrive and most company bosses agree. Growth is slowing. The Lib Dems "are not wobbling jellies of indecision'". They have the only sensible plan in place another vote on the final deal that is negotiated with the EU.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, Hillary Clinton's former aide, is under fire for saying a year's maternity leave is too long, says Karren Brady in The Sun on Sunday. But her point was that both parents need to share the responsibility. "I couldn't agree more." Unfortunately, however, we don't live in an ideal world, and that is not always possible. "My view on maternity leave is that women should take as much as they want." Companies with women on the board tend to do better than those that don't, so hopefully employers will offer it out of enlightened self-interest anyway.

The Queen's head chef, Mark Flanagan, is seeking two assistants, says Adam Helliker in the Sunday Express. The jobs pay £21,000 a year and include lodgings in the palace. But the food you'll be rustling up will often be more modest than you might expect. One of the sovereign's favourite dishes is scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and a grating of truffle. "But she was too frugal to ever order fresh truffles and only really enjoyed them at Christmas" when they were sent as a gift.