Word: camerons
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That's why there's such a buzz around the tall, sleek figure bestriding the podium in Loughborough. The town won't need much of a push to switch allegiance from Labour to Tory and neither will the country. A general election isn't due until spring 2010, and Cameron's 20-point lead in the opinion polls could yet sag if fate gifts Labour a game-changing event or an economic miracle. But for anyone who recalls the animosity toward the Tories that ushered Labour into power in 1997 and helped keep it there for more than a decade...
...decode them, and to understand the Tories' widening appeal, the proper study is Cameron himself. In some ways, he's a deeply private man, but he also relishes being center stage and understands the art of public relations. "People like to meet you in person, get the measure of you, know what makes you tick and what you care about," he says on the train back to London after an hour of unvetted questions from the burghers of Loughborough. He's been pressing the flesh across Britain and regularly files a video blog that has included intimate footage...
...despite such constant self-exposure, an easy affability that reads as openness and his willingness to perform without scripts or teleprompts, Cameron remains an enigma. Part of what makes him hard to categorize is that he's above all a pragmatist, priding himself on reasonableness rather than ideological fervor. During a wide-ranging interview at his Westminster office, he quickly dismisses the notion that his ideas amount to a political theology that might one day be known as Cameronism: "I think you just get on with it. It's the best thing to do in politics rather than trying...
Introspection isn't his bag. "I'm a very simple soul," he insists. He's certainly a well-defended one. Francis Elliott spent 18 months researching and observing him as co-author of the biography Cameron: The Rise of the New Conservative, yet still finds him elusive. "I've come to think that the word that best describes Cameron's personality is glassy," Elliott e-mails. "Smooth, cold, so flawless and polished you forget it's a barrier - until you try to cross...
...world accustomed to the incontinent confessions of public figures, there's something refreshing about Cameron's ability to hide in full view. But it does raise questions about what lies beneath his debonair façade. "Over the course of the last decade, we've seen different leaders who are good at different things, and what they've demonstrated is there are some pieces you can't not have," says David Davis, runner-up to Cameron in the Tory-leadership contest and until June a member of his shadow cabinet. "David has got the key things. He's good...