Video: Samantha Cameron's time at 10 Downing Street

SAMANTHA Cameron was once described as the Prime Minister's 'best weapon', but her husband described her as a mother and businesswoman first and foremost.
David Cameron with wife Samantha and children Nancy, 12, Elwen, 10, and Florence, 5, outside 10 Downing Street in London before leaving for Buckingham Palace for an audience with Queen Elizabeth II to formally resign as Prime Minister. Image: Hannah McKay/PA WireDavid Cameron with wife Samantha and children Nancy, 12, Elwen, 10, and Florence, 5, outside 10 Downing Street in London before leaving for Buckingham Palace for an audience with Queen Elizabeth II to formally resign as Prime Minister. Image: Hannah McKay/PA Wire
David Cameron with wife Samantha and children Nancy, 12, Elwen, 10, and Florence, 5, outside 10 Downing Street in London before leaving for Buckingham Palace for an audience with Queen Elizabeth II to formally resign as Prime Minister. Image: Hannah McKay/PA Wire

She featured heavily on the campaign trail last year, with the couple opening their home to the press in the run-up to the general election.

Combining politics and motherhood, she waded into the EU debate last month - voicing her concerns that a Brexit would limit the opportunities open to her children.

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While David Cameron has claimed he spoke with his wife when faced with “life-or-death” decisions including hostage rescue missions and troop deployment, she describes herself as a “fairly hands-off political wife”, insisting her role is to look after the family.

David Cameron with wife Samantha and children Nancy, 12, Elwen, 10, and Florence, 5, outside 10 Downing Street in London before leaving for Buckingham Palace for an audience with Queen Elizabeth II to formally resign as Prime Minister. Image: Hannah McKay/PA WireDavid Cameron with wife Samantha and children Nancy, 12, Elwen, 10, and Florence, 5, outside 10 Downing Street in London before leaving for Buckingham Palace for an audience with Queen Elizabeth II to formally resign as Prime Minister. Image: Hannah McKay/PA Wire
David Cameron with wife Samantha and children Nancy, 12, Elwen, 10, and Florence, 5, outside 10 Downing Street in London before leaving for Buckingham Palace for an audience with Queen Elizabeth II to formally resign as Prime Minister. Image: Hannah McKay/PA Wire
David Cameron with wife Samantha and children Nancy, 12, Elwen, 10, and Florence, 5, outside 10 Downing Street in London before leaving for Buckingham Palace for an audience with Queen Elizabeth II to formally resign as Prime Minister. Image: Hannah McKay/PA WireDavid Cameron with wife Samantha and children Nancy, 12, Elwen, 10, and Florence, 5, outside 10 Downing Street in London before leaving for Buckingham Palace for an audience with Queen Elizabeth II to formally resign as Prime Minister. Image: Hannah McKay/PA Wire
David Cameron with wife Samantha and children Nancy, 12, Elwen, 10, and Florence, 5, outside 10 Downing Street in London before leaving for Buckingham Palace for an audience with Queen Elizabeth II to formally resign as Prime Minister. Image: Hannah McKay/PA Wire
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She arrived in Downing Street pregnant with their daughter Florence, who was born just a few months into Mr Cameron’s premiership.

A year earlier, the couple suffered a tragic loss in February 2009 when their six-year-old son Ivan died.

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He suffered from cerebral palsy and severe epilepsy, and his profound disability permeated the couple’s lives, with Mrs Cameron describing him after his death as “very beautiful, one of the great gifts in our lives”.

Mrs Cameron, 45, has worked with a number of charities, including Save the Children and Revitalise - which offers respite care for disabled people and their carers.

The couple have two other children, Nancy and Arthur.

The Camerons have both recalled that Nancy jokes about the time they mistakenly left her in the pub after a Sunday lunch.

In an interview with the Mail on Sunday ahead of her husband’s re-election last year, Mrs Cameron said they try to live as a normal couple - joking about the embarrassing incident at Plough Inn in Cadsden, Buckinghamshire.

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She said: “There isn’t much we don’t do. We go to the cinema, we go on bike rides with the children, we go to the pub, we leave Nancy in the pub!’”

Born in London in 1971, Samantha Sheffield was brought up on her family’s sprawling estate near Scunthorpe. Her mother Annabel Jones divorced her father Sir Reginald Sheffield when Samantha was young - and subsequently married former Tory minister Lord Astor.

She was a teenager when she was introduced to Mr Cameron by her friend Clare, his younger sister. The couple dated while she was an art student in Bristol and he was advising the then chancellor Norman Lamont in London. They married in 1996.

During her husband’s time in office Mrs Cameron continued to work with luxury handbag and stationery firm Smythson - and was reported to earn considerably more than him.

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While Mrs Cameron’s thoughts on the new prime minister are not publicly known, it might be assumed she is pleased that it will be the second ever female Tory leader, having previously spoken to her husband about making the party “more representative”.

Ahead of his election in 2010, Mr Cameron said his wife told him, after watching him give his debut speech as a frontbencher: “When you look down, you do realise that you have got a long way to go to get the party to be more representative.”