He may speak the language of modernity and change, but in many ways Britain’s new prime minister David Cameron is a throwback to an earlier era of Conservative leaders.
Not only is he the first former pupil of Britain’s top private school, Eton, to hold the office since the early 1960s, he can also trace his ancestry back to William IV, making him a distant relative of the Queen.
Mr Cameron has never made any secret of his privileged background, but he has also sought to cultivate a fresh, unstuffy image.
At 43, he is the youngest prime minister since Robert Banks Johnson, the 2nd Earl of Liverpool in 1812. He is six months younger than Tony Blair when he entered Downing Street in 1997.
Like Mr Blair, he has a young family and an informal, self-consciously modern approach to politics. Mr Blair arrived at Number 10 with a guitar case in hand. Mr Cameron has his cycling helmet on his handlebars and fondness for indie rock.
Yet despite opening himself up to the TV cameras like few other British political leaders, Mr Cameron is still something of an unknown quantity.
‘Happy childhood’
Friends talk of a witty, self-deprecating character, a devoted family man who loves to throw weekend parties at his Oxfordshire constituency home and who hates “talking shop”.
But some who have had dealings with him on his rise to power, and during his brief career in business, recall a “slippery”, “ruthlessly ambitious”, somewhat guarded individual.
So who is the real David Cameron?
The third of four children, David William Duncan Cameron, was born on 9 October 1966 in London.
He spent the first three years of his life in Kensington and Chelsea before the family moved to an old rectory near Newbury, in Berkshire.
Mr Cameron has said he had a “happy childhood”, but one where “whingeing was not on the menu”.
His stockbroker father Ian was born with severely deformed legs, which he eventually had to have amputated. He has also lost the sight in one eye, but David’s father said he never considered himself “disabled” and rarely complained about anything.
Mr Cameron’s mother, Mary, served as a Justice of the Peace for 30 years. During her time on the bench she passed judgement on the Greenham Common protesters, including on one occasion her own sister, Mr Cameron revealed recently, and eco-warrior Swampy, who was protesting against the construction of the Newbury bypass.
‘Mainstream Conservative’
At the age of seven, the young Cameron was packed off to Heatherdown, a highly exclusive preparatory school, which counted Princes Edward and Andrew among its pupils. Then, following in the family tradition, came Eton.
School friends say Mr Cameron was never seen as a great academic – or noted for his interest in politics, beyond the “mainstream Conservative” views held by most of his classmates.
He has described his 12 O-levels as “not very good”, but he gained three As at A-level, in history, history of art and economics with politics.
Reportedly his biggest mention in the Eton school magazine came when he sprained his ankle dancing to bagpipes on a school trip to Rome.
Before going up to Oxford to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics he took a gap year, working initially for Sussex Conservative MP Tim Rathbone, before spending three months in Hong Kong, working for a shipping agent, and then returning by rail via the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
At Oxford, he avoided student politics because, according to one friend from the time, Steve Rathbone, “he wanted to have a good time”.
He was captain of Brasenose College’s tennis team and a member of the Bullingdon dining club, famed for its hard drinking and bad behaviour, an episode Mr Cameron has always refused to talk about.
He has also consistently dodged the question of whether he took drugs at university.
But he evidently did not let his extra-curricular activities get in the way of his studies.
His tutor at Oxford, Professor Vernon Bogdanor, describes him as “one of the ablest” students he has taught, whose political views were “moderate and sensible Conservative”.
After gaining a first class degree, he briefly considered a career in journalism or banking, before answering an advertisement for a job in the Conservative Research Department.
‘Brat pack’
Conservative Central Office is reported to have received a telephone call on the morning of his interview in June 1988, from an unnamed male at Buckingham Palace, who said: “I understand you are to see David Cameron.
“I’ve tried everything I can to dissuade him from wasting his time on politics but I have failed. I am ringing to tell you that you are about to meet a truly remarkable young man.”
Mr Cameron says he did not know the call was being made or who made it, but it is sometimes held up by his opponents as an example of his gilded passage to the top.
As a researcher, Mr Cameron was seen as a hard-working and bright. He worked with future shadow home secretary David Davis on the team briefing John Major for Prime Minister’s Questions, and also hooked up with George Osborne, who would go on to be shadow chancellor and his leadership campaign manager.
Other colleagues, in what became known as the “brat pack” were Steve Hilton, now one of Mr Cameron’s closest strategy advisers, and Andrew Lansley, expected to be the new health secretary.
These young researchers were credited with devising the attack on Labour tax plans that unexpectedly swung the 1992 general election for John Major.
Mr Major described Cameron as an “an extraordinarily able and bright young man,” and praised his “coolness and his capacity to think under pressure.”
‘Board material’
But the remainder of Mr Cameron’s time as a backroom boy in the Conservative government was more turbulent.
He was poached by then Chancellor Norman Lamont as a political adviser, and was at Mr Lamont’s side throughout Black Wednesday, which saw the pound crash out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.
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