Editorial: David Cameron, a former British PM, makes a surprise return as Suella Braverman gets the chop. Is there a lesson here for the US?

The British media labeled Monday’s news a “sensational comeback”: David Cameron, British prime minister from 2010 to 2016, is to return as foreign secretary in the Conservative government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Amazingly, none of Britain’s vaunted pack of political journalists saw this one coming.

That was partly because Cameron is not a member of Parliament. In order for him to become foreign secretary, Sunak had to essentially order an express peerage from King Charles III. Who knew that such things could be arranged so expeditiously? But in this case, that new membership in the House of Lords, and thus qualification for this job, arrived by the royal equivalent of FedEx.

But there were other reasons everybody missed this. Prime ministers, like presidents, are not typically assumed to be returning to public life in lesser offices. They’re expected to write books, deliver speeches, build presidential libraries and/or create weighty podcasts for Spotify and moralistic programming for Netflix. Some shut up entirely. Others deliver the occasional moral pronouncement on X, but otherwise stay away from the day-to-day fray.

Not Cameron, who has said he has been bored stiff since he left government service.

In Sunak’s cabinet reshuffle, Cameron will take over from James Cleverly, who now replaces the fired Suella Braverman as home secretary, Britain’s chief domestic minister. Given all that is going on in the Middle East, it hardly needs stating that Cameron has a massive new job, one that will be crucial to U.S. global interests and world peace and security.

This has happened before, kinda. In 1970, Sir Alec Douglas-Home (who served as prime minister for less than a year) returned as foreign secretary. But that was more than 50 years ago, and Douglas-Home hardly had a comparable P.M. profile to that of Cameron. It’s unprecedented in the modern era.

How people felt Monday about Cameron’s return depended, of course, on how they felt about Cameron when he was prime minister: He is viewed in Britain as closer than most to China, a double-edged sword these days, and, despite his offering up a referendum that resulted in the infamous Brexit, he is typically seen as more sophisticated in his view of Britain’s relationship with Europe than his successors. Overall, the appointment was seen as a win for moderation and an indication that some of the right-wing excesses and ill-discipline of the Boris Johnson, et al., era is being finally put to bed. A swing toward the center is a very good thing.

More importantly, there is no disputing Cameron’s experience: Having been the boss of the foreign secretary is very good training for being the foreign secretary, a job that most likely is far more satisfying if your interest is in effecting change rather than fending off internal rebellion. And if your remit includes the Israeli-Hamas war, it’s hardly desirable to have someone learning on the job.

The Cameron development, of course, brings up an interesting question on this side of the Atlantic: Why don’t we use our former presidents in the same way?

Would not a post-presidential Bill Clinton or George W. Bush or Barack Obama have been useful in actual government office? Would not Obama have been a useful secretary of something for his old pal Joe Biden?

Former President Jimmy Carter had a substantial post-White House career, of course, dabbling in all kinds of election monitoring and other internationalist do-gooding, sometimes to the frustration of those in official government roles. Similarly, Clinton and Bush’s appearances abroad together discussing international issues occasionally were seen as confusing to those outside the U.S.

Conventional wisdom tends to assume that once you’ve been the boss, you don’t want to be an underling, a logic that might apply in business (although that’s questionable, too), but surely should not when it comes to public service. You could apply the same argument to governors of states, of course, and perhaps even to big-city mayors, allowing former chief executives to focus on a post-mayoral area of interest, while offering up some wise counsel to the new boss.

Granted, the age of the former chief comes into play here. Cameron was a young prime minister and, at this point of comeback, he still is only 57 years old and has plenty of energy left for some shuttle diplomacy. It’s reasonable to assume that he has let some of the stuff go that public figures need to let go and that he’ll be interested now in just focusing on this particular job. Ego also matters: Some people are able to transition to a subservient role; others are insufficiently secure to do so.

But, in Cameron’s case, he surely will enjoy the new ability to focus. Prime ministers, like presidents, are forced to be generalists. As foreign secretary, he’ll have a huge new portfolio and profile, but one blissfully devoid of much else that can get in the way.

So chalk one down Monday for the highly experienced. And that brings us to Hillary Clinton.

In an appearance Nov. 8 on the ABC talk show “The View,” the former secretary of state offered a concise, courageous, smart and unstinting summation of events in the Middle East, and in Ukraine. She cut through the ill-informed chatter on the Israeli-Hamas conflict, including on that very show. It was a superior piece of communication to any we have heard of late from the White House.

Here was a reminder of the depth of Clinton’s international experience, how much she knows and her ability at communicating those long-standing values and positions to the American people.

Clinton is staying busy delivering speeches and even producing Broadway shows.

But only a fool would not wish Clinton was officially assisting Secretary of State Antony Blinken as he tries to navigate the massive crisis in the Middle East.

Join the discussion on Twitter @chitribopinions and on Facebook.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.