Trying to work out what David Cameron really thinks, I had a strange sense of déjà vu

He is the longest serving of our major party leaders. He could be Prime Minister next year. He has had publicity that many a politician would kill for. Yet how many voters can answer a simple question — what does David Cameron really think?

That is what I have been trying to do for a documentary on BBC Radio 4. My producer Martin Rosenbaum and I have spoken to those who know Cameron best — his friends, his colleagues and a few of those who he’s crossed over the years. Eighteen months ago we made a programme which asked the same question about the man who then looked set to be the next occupant of 10 Downing Street, Gordon Brown. Our aim then and now was to examine the values and the influences upon the man who would be Prime Minister rather than their policies. We’ve been struck by how much harder our task has been this time around.

Brown had been at the top of government for ten years. Cameron has never held office. Brown had just had a vast compendium of his speeches published and, as a young man, had written a book outlining his political philosophy. Not so Cameron. The non-political influences on Brown — in particular, his father’s religious teaching and the impact of almost losing his sight — were already well documented. In comparison, much less is known about how Cameron’s background shaped him.

The influences on the Tory leader are, for many, summed up by just two photographs. The first shows a young Cameron strutting in tailcoats alongside fellow Old Etonian Boris Johnson, in a portrait of Oxford University’s answer to the Bash Street kids. Both are now bidding to prove that association with the braying boys of the Bullingdon Club is not a bar to high office.