David Cameron

The tone was set from the moment of the big launch of the Tory leader’s election year in January. Mr Cameron’s image-makers and strategists determined that the best chance of success lay in playing their ace card – namely Mr Cameron himself.

The result was the unveiling of a dramatic and overpowering poster of the Tory leader, alongside a pledge not to cut the NHS.

But it backfired. Was the image airbrushed? It did look slightly too clean a photo. A denial did not come and Labour had a field day as it played to their attack-line that Mr Cameron was a PR creation.

However, in those crucial opening skirmishes there was worse to come. Mr Cameron was pressed on whether his much-heralded commitment to recognising marriage in the tax system was a commitment or an aspiration. He was unable to say he would offer tax breaks in a first Tory term.

It was seized on by Tory supporters and opponents alike and Mr Cameron’s hasty “clarification” that he would act on a marriage tax in the first term did little to quell the political storm that broke around him.

It was a setback that shock Tory confidence and gave Gordon Brown and his weary team a boost. The polls narrowed.

The Tories never properly recovered and the launch of their big idea – The Big Society – enthused only those with little grasp of what would “sell” the Conservatives on the doorstep.

Mr Cameron watched in astonishment as Nick Clegg used the first ever television debates to blow a hole in presumptions that the election was all about Cameron versus Brown. Tory fire was turned on Mr Clegg and his party.

But on the morning on May 7th it was to Mr Clegg that the Tory leader was forced to turn when his hopes of securing a Commons majority were dashed.

Despite the disappointment Mr Cameron made Mr Clegg a clear offer. After initially flirting with the idea of a “confidence and supply” arrangement he seized the moment fully and offered his Lib Dem counterpart a full-blown Coalition.

It was a bold move. For the sake of throwing a few policies overboard and handing over Cabinet seats to the Lib Dems Mr Cameron would be able to govern as Prime Minister with a commanding majority to 83.

Using that majority Mr Cameron has survived one crucial Commons vote – on tuition fees. He has been tested with the Cabinet resignation of David Laws in May, the embarrassing departure of a close adviser in Lord Young in November, and violence on his Whitehall doorstep.

But he has forged ahead with his deficit reduction plan, completed a brutal spending review and carried out a defence review.

His performance as Prime Minister has surprised even his political opponents. John Reid, the former Labour Cabinet minister, said recently noted the “astute” Mr Cameron appeared to be flourishing. The Telegraph