David Cameron is the latest former prime minister to miss next weekend’s Chequers party according to national reports.

He joins Tony Blair and Gordon Brown who have already declined to attend the celebration to mark 100 years since Chequers became the prime ministers’ official country retreat.

The 16th-century Chequers is located near the village of Ellesborough, halfway between Princes Risborough and Wendover in Buckinghamshire.

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All living former prime ministers have been invited to the dinner which will be hosted by current PM Boris Johnson.

Sir John Major and Theresa May are set to attend but Mr Cameron has turned the invitation down as he has a previous engagement.

The plans were made prior to receiving the invitation from the Chequers Trust, and according to the Daily Mail Online he is said to be ‘sorry’ he cannot attend.

Mr Cameron, 54, used Chequers most weekends when he was prime minister between 2010 and 2016.

Mr Blair and Mr Brown could not change their schedule after they said they were asked only at short notice,

Chequers, built in 1565, was given to the nation by Tory MP Sir Arthur Lee in 1917 to be used as a country retreat for the serving prime minister.

The Chequers Estate Act 1917 created a trust allowing prime ministers use of the mansion, which has ten bedrooms, a tennis court and a swimming pool.

The Chequers Trust receives an annual grant of nearly £1 million from the Government for its upkeep.

The first prime minister to move in was Liberal leader David Lloyd George, in 1921.

Sir Arthur said, traditionally, prime ministers had been from the landed classes and had country residences of their own in which to entertain foreign dignitaries or simply to relax.

He said that with the advent of democracy, premiers were much less likely to own huge mansions, meaning they needed somewhere of their own.