Portal:University of Oxford/Selected biography/34

David Cameron (born 1966) is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party. He has been the Member of Parliament for Witney since 2001. Cameron studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Brasenose College, Oxford. He then joined the Conservative Research Department and became Special Adviser to Norman Lamont, and then to Michael Howard. He was Director of Corporate Affairs at Carlton Communications for seven years. After his election to Parliament, he was promoted to the Opposition front bench in 2003, and rose rapidly to become head of policy co-ordination during the 2005 general election campaign. He won the Conservative leadership election in 2005. In the 2010 general election held on 6 May, the Conservatives gained a plurality of seats in a hung parliament and Cameron was appointed Prime Minister on 11 May 2010, at the head of a coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. At the age of 43, Cameron became the youngest British Prime Minister since the Earl of Liverpool 198 years earlier. The Cameron Ministry is the first coalition government in the United Kingdom since the Second World War. (more...)