The outside world crowds in on a new Prime Minister the minute he walks through the door of No 10. Barack Obama was on the phone to congratulate Mr Cameron while he still had his jacket on, and his officials had briefings at the ready on the pressing strategic and security issues that come with the job. Even the Queen opened with foreign policy in her first audience, asking, apparently, what her Prime Minister intended to do to save the forthcoming Papal visit from the mess left by Labour. Issues that barely figured on the campaign trail suddenly dominate.
In the six weeks since then, Mr Cameron's initial steps on the world stage have been studied closely by those curious as to what British foreign policy will be in the hands of a politician of icy self-confidence and little enthusiasm for the grand international projects that excited his predecessors.
