Profile: David Cameron's emergence as frontrunner to lead the British Tory Party has livened up the campaign. But can the self-styled 'heir to Blair' take the crown, asks Deaglán de Bréadún
He's the man who rose without trace. With only four and a half years in the House of Commons behind him, David Cameron has made little impact at Westminster. In the race for the Tory leadership he was a rank outsider until his now famous speech at the party conference in Blackpool earlier this month.
That 20-minute address has since acquired near-mythic proportions, as though it ranked with Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. But media reaction at the time was measured and cool: Cameron spoke well but had not electrified the delegates. In the age of the autocue and the prepared script, the young MP scored points for speaking without notes.
Observers say it wasn't that Cameron was outstandingly good but that his chief opponent and former frontrunner for the leadership, David Davis, was remarkably bad. The 56-year-old warhorse made a wooden and lacklustre contribution, underlining the feeling in Tory circles that you just could not elect another dull, grey, middle-aged man to compete against New (or Slightly Used) Labour in the next election.
Style is winning the battle against substance in politics these days. Cameron has what passes for style in Tory circles, at least by comparison with his opponents. True, the "Big Beast", aka Ken Clarke, oozes personality, wit and flair, but it is the old-fashioned kind. You don't have to be an ageist bigot to conclude that a party in desperate need of rejuvenation could not afford to elect a cigar-chomping 65-year-old as its leader.
"Cameron makes Blair look old, which Ken Clarke was never going to do," said one observer.
David Cameron seems to have the "Teflon factor" - nothing sticks to him, so far at any rate. A less fortunate politician would have been ruined by any suggestion he had indulged in hard drugs in the past. But when asked if he had ever been stoned, Cameron simply stonewalled. Like the soldier repeating his name, rank and serial number, the Tory tyro kept on chanting the mantra that he may have erred and strayed in his youth, as students often do, and he wasn't prepared to discuss it any further.
Finally, this week he said he had never snorted cocaine since getting elected to Parliament. The issue isn't going away and who knows what may be waiting out there for him, as tabloid hacks prowl London's dens of iniquity, chequebooks in hand. But, so far, the only people damaged by the allegation are those who are believed to be putting it about and, rightly or wrongly, many blame the Davis campaign.
MAYBE WE ARE seeing a cultural change on the British political scene. Dark mutterings can be heard about the inadvisability of people in glass houses deciding to throw stones. Even some journalists have been known to indulge in illegal substances and this may be part of the reason the Eton- and Oxford-educated Cameron has not only survived but thrived in the eye of the media storm.
Nobody was in any doubt this week that the young pretender would top the poll among Tory MPs, which he duly did with 90 votes, to 57 for Davis and 51 for Dr Liam Fox. Like them or loathe them, you can't blame the Tories for wanting to try something different. Who needs another election defeat and, if Tony Blair was the answer to Labour's problems, why not try "Tory Blair" or "Blair Lite" in the form of Cameron?
He's only 39 years old and has a sprinkling of blue blood which may have a certain snob appeal. He's married to Samantha Sheffield, the daughter of a baronet, and they have two children: three-year-old Ivan, who has cerebral palsy, and Nancy, aged 16 months. Fresh-faced and smiling, you could never say of David Cameron, as Tory grande dame Anne Widdecombe said of Michael Howard, that there is "something of the night" about him. He's part of the "Notting Hill set" of eager, thrusting young Tories who are creatures of their time rather than trying to recreate a long-lost era.
There are striking parallels with the milieu from which Tony Blair emerged to launch his crusade. They know the party has to change and take a different tack if it is to be successful. Perhaps Cameron's greatest asset is his positive outlook on today's Britain. Enough of this gloom and doom, he wants to take his followers on a "wonderful journey" so they can live out new "Conservative dreams".
Another reason the man who would be PM emerged unscathed from the drugs imbroglio is that British society is changing. Coke-snorting is a fairly unremarkable feature of the life of many young professionals in London, rather like marijuana to their parents' generation.
Amid all the to-ing and fro-ing, the whispered conversations in the corridors and the allegations of treachery and counter-treachery, nobody has suggested the party is "tearing itself apart". On the contrary, this leadership contest has caught the public imagination with its Big Brother procedure of voting people out of contention one by one: first Clarke, now Fox, and next, probably, Davis. For the first time in eight years, Conservatives are attracting consistently favourable interest and attention from those members of the public who find Blair boring and Gordon Brown unappetising.
CASHING IN ON this, Cameron himself reportedly told a gathering of media executives: "I am the heir to Blair." There is a tide in political affairs and now would seem to be the moment for the Conservative Party to move to the centre ground.
"Maybe Cameron is going to carry on the Blair flame," mused one long-time observer. But the would-be leader is very much an unknown quantity who has never been really tested under fire.
His backers hope Cameron can appeal to "Middle Britain" just as Blair did and as Brown never could, according to his critics. Looking ahead, one sage ventured the forecast that "Cameron will make Brown look tired - or else Brown will eat him for breakfast". The regular jousts between prime minister and leader of the opposition at the Dispatch Box in the House of Commons are an important dimension of British politics, and the Tories have to choose someone who can perform well in the role of gladiator.
But he hasn't quite got the crown on his head yet. The drugs issue is still rumbling and a sufficiently lurid tabloid story could yet unhorse David Cameron, since the implications might be taken a lot more seriously by the grassroots Tories who will choose between himself and Davis in a postal ballot, with the result being announced in early December.
However, if all goes well, Cameron may even be grateful for the drugs story which kept him on the front pages and gave him an opportunity to personify Hemingway's definition of courage as "grace under pressure". If he gets there, it will be mainly due to That Speech or at least to Davis's feeble riposte. It seems the age of oratory is not dead after all.
The Cameron File
Who is he? The outsider who has become the favourite to lead the British Conservative Party
Why is he in the news? The Tories think he could take back No 10
Most appealing characteristic? New face, new soundbites
Least appealing characteristic? Evasive on drugs issue
Most likely to say? The torch has been passed to a new generation
Least likely to say? Actually, I'm far too young and inexperienced