The Queen, it has been observed, has changed her speech over the years. From an accent that bore the unmistakeable signature of her class, she has slipped into the more reassuring RP (Received Pronunciation). The transformation was overdue and the change is about as significant as Hugh Grant replacing Terry Thomas as the British upper-class stereotype. As the third pillar of British nationhood ? after the monarchy and the Church of England ? the Conservative Party was never as hidebound. It was always a mass party and straddled classes and communities. Yet, since Mr Tony Blair dealt it a crippling blow in 1997, the Conservative Party has never really recovered its self-esteem. The problem was never ideology, a commodity that common sense politicians have always eschewed. The deficiencies were more at the level of inspiration. The Conservative Party somehow lacked the ability to connect to a 21st century Britain that was not entirely sure of where it was going. A Toryism based on the certitudes of class, property, motherhood and deference was perceived as alien by a Cool Britannia nurtured on multiculturalism, single mothers, football hooliganism and appalling table manners. It is not that a Conservative Party which had won eight out of the 14 general elections between 1945 and 1997 abruptly turned regressive and reactionary. It is just that Mr Blair refashioned Labour into New Labour and made the Conservatives look like creatures the world forgot.

The election of 39-year-old Mr David Cameron as the new Conservative Party leader could well mark the beginning of the counter-revolution. On paper, Mr Cameron symbolizes everything the old cloth cap socialists despised about Tory England. He went to Eton and Oxford where he was member of one of the more boisterous dining clubs, is very distantly related to the Queen through William IV and is married to the CEO of Smythson of Bond Street. He was, as someone wrote, ?born to rule.? However, like the Queen?s accent, Mr Cameron?s Conservatism has evolved from the Toryism of Alec Douglas-Home, the previous Etonian to head the Conservative Party. First, it is not the Toryism of the Shires but the noblesse oblige of Notting Hill. Second, it is not the Toryism of market capitalism, as Ms Margaret Thatcher wanted it to be, but the ?compassionate?, managerial conservatism of those who help out at the Oxfam shop on weekends. Finally, it is not the Conservatism based on the intellectualism of Mr Michael Portillo but the marketing of charisma. Mr Cameron has a better smile than Mr Blair whose wrinkles are beginning to show.