BY STEWART SLATER

Like George Nathaniel Curzon, David Cameron is a most superior person. His face is pink, his hair is sleek. He may even (for all I know) dine at Blenheim once a week. Unlike “Dear George”, Dave became Prime Minister but the former would gain some comfort, I am sure, from having been Viceroy of India and a Marquess rather than having to settle for a barony (it is an interesting comment on how Britain saw its imperial role that running the subcontinent generally brought with it a higher level of gong than merely running the empire).

If Curzon’s claim to power was, to his own mind at least, incontestable, his legacy was not. Tourists owe him a debt of gratitude for his restoration of the Taj Mahal, but his partition of Bengal was a disaster. It inflamed Hindu sentiment giving a boost to the Independence movement and, by carving the old Presidency along religious lines, encouraged a sense of Muslim separateness which would lead to Partition and, in 1971, the nine month Bangladesh Liberation War.

Back in 1905 when he introduced the plan, Curzon could scarcely have foreseen the latter two consequences of it. But that is the nature of politics. The results of policy take time to play out and, when the tangled skein of history is unravelled, what might have seemed a good idea is often revealed to have been an error of titanic proportions. By that time, the perpetrator of the mistake has usually moved on, and it is left to his successor to attempt to repair the damage.

Rishi Sunak is that rare member of the super-rich for whom it is hard not to feel a twinge of sympathy. Every time things seem, finally, to be going his way, a landmine from the past blows up and, to somewhat mix the metaphor, the stone rolls back down the hill, forcing our weary Sisyphus to trudge after it and start his labour anew from an ever lower position in the polls.

His first task on taking office was to sort out the mess left by Liz Truss, soundly libertarian in every respect, save the minor detail of lumping the population up to £200bn to cover the rise in energy bills. It is easy in hindsight to feel that she panicked, but there were reasonable grounds for concern. Britain had little storage capacity for gas (the role of the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, one L. Truss, in the closure of the Rough facility is one of those less-explored by-ways of history) and had not opened a new nuclear plant since 1995. The coalition government had considered doing so, but decided against in 2010 because they would only come onstream in 2021. Truly, a long term decision for a darker future.

A little bit of gentle error-correction at the start of a term is probably to be expected. But for Rishi, the corrections keep on coming. He had to reset the relationship with the E.U. in the Windsor Agreement. The previous arrangement had been found wanting because it had been agreed at haste, Theresa May’s failed approach to the negotiations leaving little time before the deadline. Not that she would have been anywhere near the top job, had David Cameron not quit on the morning of the referendum result.

Occasionally, progress seems to be made. The Autumn Statement landed about as well as can be expected for a mini-budget which purports to cut taxes while raising them. But, like Michael Corleone, every time Rishi thinks he is out, he gets sucked back in. For the feel-good factor caused by the government taking less money than it might, but more than it did, was crushed by the migration figures.

There was more than a little chortling from the Remain-supporting side of the country that the little Englanders of Brexit had been hoisted on their own petard. But if this showed their usual lack of understanding of the case for Leave, it also ignored much of the data. For a cursory glance shows a marked increase in visas for students over the past few years. In the 2010’s, non-EU students accounted for about 200,000 visas, but the number is now approaching 500,000.

Why might this be?

Britain has a great university sector, but this has long been the case. It is not as if Oxford or Cambridge has suddenly shot to global prominence. Nor is it the case that the number of adolescents in the country has suddenly collapsed. There are just as many potential British students as there were before.

What has changed is inflation.

The Browne Report of 2010, initially set up to buy off Labour rebels, recommended removing the cap on fees (then £3,290 per annum) entirely. This caused problems for the Lib Dems who, having long campaigned against students paying for their education, had set a firm red line on increasing the price. In the end, a bill was passed but, instead of removing the cap on fees as suggested, it raised it to £9,000. Where it remains.

In the 1990’s, mainly to annoy a friend who hadn’t got in, I applied to Harvard. Had I chosen to go there, my father would have been writing annual cheques for $24,000. Were my children to take the same approach (and I hope they do not. It is, as a teacher told me, “Somewhere in the colonies”), I will be looking for $74,000 a year.

Harvard passes on the increase in costs it faces to those it teaches. By law, British universities cannot. Which causes problems when prices rise 10% a year.

Conveniently, overseas student fees are higher than those for UK students (up to four times so) and not subject to a cap, so like the rational economic actors they sometimes are, it makes sense for universities to recruit as many overseas students as they can. This doesn’t help the immigration statistics, nor does it do much for the students, crammed ever more like sardines into lecture theatres, but Cameron’s system has a logic and that logic will out.

Everywhere you look, the consequences of that administration are becoming clear. Too much migration from sub-Saharan Africa? Getting rid of the Libyan strongman who crushed the gangs might not have been the best idea. Worried about crime? Reducing police numbers by 20,000 probably did not help. (That the coppers who remain seem to regard misgendering as a greater crime than burglary is a another story for another day). Concerned that Britain no longer punches its weight? The coalition’s defence review made the “most draconian cuts to the UK’s military capabilities”

Context is important. The coalition came to power at a time when, famously, there was no money left. Cuts had to be made. But mistakes were made also. Mistakes which did not have to be made, whose consequences we still suffer and which our current Prime Minister is forced to correct.

There was much comment about the official welcome for the South Korean President when the Foreign Secretary stood in the middle of the Prime Minister and Home Secretary, assuming the position of power. But pictures are, occasionally, worth a thousand words.

It is still Dave’s world. Rishi just gets to clean it up.

Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.