Word: camerons
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Clever, articulate, well educated, socially adept, politically astute, photogenic, charming, charismatic, Cameron does fill all the slots - bar one. His charmed life (the gilded youth of this son of a wealthy stockbroker; the education at that most élite of British schools, Eton College, followed by Oxford University; the meteoric political advancement) has been very short of the character-forming struggles that garnish many a political résumé. While across the Atlantic the presidential contenders flaunt their personal stories, parade their families and brandish their scars, the Conservatives trust that buttoned-up Brits care less about such things...
...dining association confers membership to its ultra-exclusive ranks by invitation only. At his Bullingdon debut, Worth, wearing the distinctive tailcoat with ivory lapels that is required for all Bullingdon functions, caught a boat to Cliveden, a stately home turned luxury hotel. It was on board that he encountered Cameron. "There was a surreal Brideshead Regurgitated quality to the evening," says Worth, who went on to become a consultant and speechwriter for several heads of state. "I remember David quoting Winston Churchill extensively by memory - Churchill was a bit of a lush, so they were quotes about drinking...
There's a photograph of Cameron with Boris Johnson, London's patrician mayor, and other Bullingdon members in their toffy getup, taken a year before the Cliveden trip and widely reprinted in the British press last year. It has been withdrawn from circulation. Old friends stick together, and none more so than Britons bonded through the shared experiences of class and education. One sign of the narrowness of Cameron's natural world: his wife Samantha, although the daughter of a baronet, is widely credited with being her husband's conduit to a more plural society. She's the creative director...
...Cameron doesn't deny his past, but he's keen not to dwell on it either, even though the politics of envy - once a potent weapon for Labour - has lost traction. That was the cheering message Tories could take from their May by-election victory in Crewe and Nantwich, a constituency in northwest England. Edward Timpson, heir to a shoe-repair chain, won easily there, despite a negative campaign that burlesqued him as a "Tory toff." Likewise, concludes Iain Dale, a Conservative blogger and the publisher of Total Politics magazine, Cameron's background is no longer an electoral liability...
...that doesn't mean that class is no longer an issue. Cameron's signature policies, the defining core of Cameronism - if, despite his protests, such a thing exists - are geared to improving social mobility and fixing what he calls "broken Britain." Like all Conservatives, he wants a smaller state and a disciplined approach to public finances. He also preaches a bigger role for the community and the importance of fostering a greater sense of social responsibility. His focus, he says, is on "welfare, schools and families. If you want to mend the broken society, these are the things you have...