PERHAPS in the days of 24/7 media, where every unguarded comment is seized upon and where every unscripted stumble is videoed, David Cameron is right in leaving the House of Commons to prevent him becoming a distraction to his successor as Prime Minister, Theresa May.

He is following in the footsteps of Tony Blair who in 2007 quit as PM and also MP for Sedgefield.

However, the people of Mr Cameron’s Witney constituency, just like the voters in Sedgefield, have a right to feel a little disappointed.

For the last six years, they will probably have felt that they haven’t had a grassroots MP because Mr Cameron had been too busy running the country. Similarly, Sedgefield didn’t see much of Mr Blair when he was PM and, over the Tees, Richmond was without William Hague when he was a globe-trotting Foreign Secretary. This is not a criticism of those individuals – this is just the way our system works.

However, if Mr Cameron had taken to the backbenches and kept his head down until the next general election, he could have repaid the faith of his local voters by tackling their local issues. Just by throwing his weight behind, say, a new bypass or an inward investment project, he could have made a real difference.

Once, he wanted to save the environment, but that rather got lost in the dirty daily business of government. From the backbenches, and surely without undermining Mrs May, he could have used his globally-known name to make a worthwhile contribution on global warming.

After Mr Brown lost the 2010 General Election, he retreated to the backbenches for five years and didn’t make life awkward for his successor Ed Miliband (perhaps Mr Miliband was so good at making life awkward for himself he didn’t need any outside assistance). Mr Brown used the time to establish his charities and was on hand to play a persuasive role in the Scottish referendum, which is now part of his legacy.

Mr Cameron’s last defining act will be accidentally taking Britain out of the EU.