Gavin Cordon looks at the life of Britain’s new Prime Minister, who had to change himself before he could transform his party.

FEW modern politicians have enjoyed such a seemingly effortless rise to the top as David Cameron.

From gilded youth to rising star of the Tory benches to the youngest Prime Minister since 1812, his progress has at times seemed pre-ordained.

It was only at the very brink of entering 10 Downing Street that his step seemed to falter.

His carefully-prepared plans to oust Gordon Brown and end the Conservatives’ 13 years in the wilderness did not include the possibility that he would be outshone by Nick Clegg during the Leaders’ Debates, and would then have to offer the third party leader a coalition deal.

Some in his party are furious that the man who said he knew how to win back power made unforced errors, such as demanding the TV debates at a time when he was ahead in the polls, and building the Tory campaign around the concept of the Big Society, which was difficult to sell on the doorstep.

But Mr Cameron kept his nerve, proving himself able to reach out to the Lib Dems and fend off Labour attempts to deny him power.

Like the party he has finally led back to power, the Conservative leader had to undergo his own process of re-invention.

Mr Cameron was born into wealth and privilege, the Eton and Oxford-educated son of a stockbroker who married the daughter of a baronet.

He might have seemed, on the face of it, to be a throwback to another era, when the ruling classes governed as of right.

He has, however, carefully re-crafted his image as a modern family man, pioneering internet chats while cooking meals for his children, and embracing fashionable causes like climate change.

But Mr Cameron has also shown political steel in his drive to rid the Conservatives of their image as the “nasty party”, brooking no opposition to his modernising agenda.

BORN on October 9, 1966, his early life gave little sign of what would lie ahead.

At university he took little interest in student politics, becoming involved instead with the Bullingdon Club – a dining society for ex-public schoolboys with a reputation for drunken excesses.

Nevertheless, on graduating in 1988 with a first in philosophy, politics and economics, he landed a job in the Conservative research department.

After a spell at No 10, where he helped brief John Major for Prime Minister’s Questions, he was spotted by then-chancellor Norman Lamont, who made him his special advisor.

It gave him a ringside seat during the crisis of Black Wednesday in 1992, when Britain was humiliatingly forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

In 1994 he took a break from politics, becoming director of corporate affairs at Carlton Communications for seven years. After unsuccessfully standing in Stafford in the 1997 General Election, he was elected in the safe Conservative seat of Witney in 2001.

He quickly established himself as one of the brightest of the new Tory intake, becoming the leading light of the so-called Notting Hill set of young modernisers who grouped themselves around Michael Howard after he became leader in 2003.

He also underwent the life-changing experience of seeing his first child, Ivan, born suffering from cerebral palsy and severe epilepsy.

Friends said that it opened him up, turning the brash young man who had enjoyed an uninterrupted ascent into a more rounded, thoughtful and sympathetic character.

Last year, he and his wife, Samantha, endured the heartbreak of Ivan’s death, aged only six.

Meanwhile, his political career was progressing, with Mr Howard entrusting him with the key task of policy co-ordinator in the runup to the 2005 election.

Nevertheless, it was something of a surprise when he decided to run for the leadership in the wake of Mr Howard’s decision to stand down following the party’s third consecutive defeat– and an even bigger shock when he overtook favourites David Davis and Kenneth Clarke to win.

IT was immediately clear that he was a new kind of Conservative leader – at ease on the sofas of daytime television talking about his family and boasting of his enthusiasm for bands like The Smiths.

He quickly set about changing the party in his own image. There was an eye-catching trip to a Norwegian glacier, complete with huskies, to underline his new concern for the environment.

Old preoccupations with Europe were largely forgotten and hardline law and order rhetoric replaced with the language of “broken Britain” and greater understanding for young people – gleefully caricatured by opponents as “hug a hoodie”.

Crucially, he sought to reform the face of his party, breaking the stranglehold of white middle and upper class males by ensuring the selection of more women and ethnic minority candidates.

In making changes, he consciously sought to echo the transformation Tony Blair wrought on Labour a decade earlier.

The reforms did not, inevitably, go down well in all quarters of the party. He was accused by Lord Tebbit of trying to purge all memories of Thatcherism, while others complained of his reliance – like Mr Blair – on a small group of key confidantes and advisors, to the exclusion of outsiders.

But with the Conservatives reversing Labour’s long-standing lead in the opinion polls, opening up the prospect of a return to power, most were prepared to suppress their doubts.

There were, of course, setbacks. His “green”

credentials took a knock when it was disclosed that he was followed on his cycle ride to work by a driver taking his papers and other belongings.

Critics said that it was symptomatic of a politician who put image before policy.

His task now is to convince voters that he offers real substance as well.