But he still has plenty of insights to offer for his fellow Conservatives after what he described as this year's 'ejection election' and doled some of them out at party conference in Birmingham last week as he declined to endorse one of the four leadership hopefuls.
At a fringe event at conference he also ruled himself out of a future bid to become mayor of London, but defended the mayoral system in other English cities beyond the capital.
He said: "The original vision of elected mayors outside London was George Osborne's and, at the time that he did it, working in Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, Tees Valley and so on, it was assumed that this would be handing power automatically to Labour.
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