David Cameron has risen rapidly to become frontrunner in the Tory leadership race, but faces an even bigger challenge if he is to become prime minister.

Having all but persuaded his party to back charismatic youth over grizzled experience, he must now persuade the country to do the same.

The 39-year-old is younger than Tony Blair when he took over the leadership of the Labour Party. He is three years older than William Hague when he became leader of the Opposition, but has been an MP for only half the time.

He will be pitched into immediate battle with Blair, but knows his real opponent is Gordon Brown, who is widely expected to succeed the prime minister in Number 10.

But in capturing the Conservative imagination, Cameron has revealed little about himself other than his ability to inspire and enthuse, not least on the issue of drugs.

The question of whether he used any illegal substances in his privileged (Eton and Oxford) youth dominated the latter stages of his campaign.

Yet conversely the media firestorm allowed him to demonstrate backbone and judgement, with his decision not to answer so far vindicated by the failure of the press to produce any evidence.

While he has not been in frontline politics for long, Cameron does possess a wealth of experience behind the scenes.

After university he joined the Conservative Research Department, a traditional training ground for aspiring Tories, where he rose to head of the political section.

There he helped prepare John Major for prime minister's questions, a role he has more recently repeated with Michael Howard and which will provide him with crucial confidence in his despatch box battles with Blair and Brown in compensation for his lack of a Commons track record.

After Central Office and the 1992 general election, Cameron moved to the Treasury as a special adviser to then chancellor Norman Lamont.

He watched first hand as the government grappled with the European exchange rate mechanism in the run-up to 'Black Wednesday'.

Following Lamont's sacking in 1993 Cameron moved across to the Home Office as an adviser to then home secretary Howard, learning more about political firestorms there as his boss embarked upon a one man battle with parliament, the judiciary, the civil service and other vested interests.

Between 1994 and his election to the safe Witney seat in 2001 he worked in the private sector as director of corporate affairs for Carlton Communications, pausing to fight Stafford for the Tories in 1997.

Since winning Witney he has held a number of frontbench roles, most recently shadow education secretary, as well as serving on the home affairs select committee.

But despite writing the Conservative election manifesto this year, he has left little sign of what kind of leader he will be.

In this election he has cast himself as the moderniser in the race, offering a relentlessly optimistic outlook and pledging to lead and govern for the whole country from the centre-ground.

But beyond commitments to supporting marriage and specialist schools for the disabled, he has been vague on what this means in policy terms. Some see this as a deliberate decision before Brown makes clear his own intentions.

While Cameron professes commitment to the public services and is a regular user of them himself with a disabled son, he has said that Brown has blocked Blair's more radical public sector reforms.

That suggests he would want to do more to break up provision of education and healthcare and possibly go even further than Blair in looking at funding streams.

On tax he is close to George Osborne, a friend and fellow modernising member of the so-called and sometimes sneered at 'Notting Hill set', who as shadow chancellor has pushed the Conservatives towards considering simpler and flatter charges.

And while he wants to thoroughly update the Tory image, he remains an avowed eurosceptic, a stance which has done much to tarnish the party's brand.