The stunning return of former leader David Cameron to international politics after seven years in the wilderness following his disastrous Brexit loss says one of two things about the current state of Britain’s Conservative government.

Either, after a lengthy stint of drift and chaos, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has decided to put the grown-ups back in charge or – as many suspect – he is so bereft of ideas and talent in his ranks that he reached into an ever dwindling bag of tricks in an act of desperation.

Former British prime minister David Cameron has been appointed foreign secretary.Credit: PA

Cameron’s appointment to the House of Lords and his return to cabinet, this time as foreign secretary, comes at a time of great domestic despair in the UK and a time of global peril. Many are kept awake at night by a war in Eastern Europe with no end in sight, by the potential spread of Israel’s war on Hamas in the Middle East and the ever-present spectre of an assertive China in the Indo-Pacific.

The briefings from those close to Sunak are that Cameron is a respected figure on the world stage who will help ensure Britain plays a leading role in shaping global affairs while Sunak can focus on the domestic economy.

The constant churn rate of the four top positions in government has broadly tripled in the wake of the Brexit referendum, compared with the period between 1979 and June 2016.

Excluding incumbents at the time of the vote, there have been four prime ministers, six chancellors and foreign secretaries, and seven home secretaries since the referendum.

British PM Rishi Sunak attends the Lord Mayor’s Banquet at the Guildhall in the City of London. Credit: Bloomberg

The average tenure for the positions of chancellor, foreign secretary and home secretary has fallen below 500 days since mid-2016. Political commentators say the merry-go-round of senior roles has stymied ministers’ ability to effectively master their brief and efficiently enact policies.

Cameron is the first former prime minister to return as an unelected member of a government in half a century, following in the footsteps of Alec Douglas-Home. In Australian politics, it is hard to find anything near equivalent.