It was December 6, 2005, when the chairman of the Conservative backbench MPs' group the 1922 Committee, Sir Michael Spicer, told us what we had suspected for a long time -- that, at just 38, David Cameron was the new leader of the Tory Party.

Since then, Mr Cameron has not only become a father for the third time, but can bask in the knowledge that he is officially the world's sexiest politician. Well, according to the readers of New Woman magazine at least.

And now there is a sudden spring in the step of Tory MPs and activists across the country -- the Cameron leadership appears to have made it respectable to be a Conservative once more.

Most of his first three months have been spent trying to persuade voters his party is different from that with which the public lost patience under Margaret Thatcher and John Major -- and ignored under William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith.

But has he made an impact?

He has gained plenty of column inches and TV exposure (especially when announcing plans to put a turbine generator on the roof of his London house), but the polls, despite an initial surge in support, no longer seem to suggest so.

A Mori survey of voting intentions in Great Britain published in December last year, the month Mr Cameron became leader, put the Tories on 37 points, Labour on 35 and the Liberal Democrats on 20.

But the same poll for February this year shows the Tories on 33, Labour on 41 and the Lib Dems unchanged on 20.

Cameron says the Tories are "modern and compassionate", but in creating a series of task groups, on everything from climate change and the environment to inner cities, he has thrust past Tory figures like Hague, John Gummer and Michael Heseltine into the limelight once more.

He has also been criticised for being "all style and no substance".

After he became leader satirical magazine Private Eye published pictures of Tony Blair and Mr Cameron side by side under the headline 'World's First Face Transplant "A Success"'.

And then there have been the policy U-turns.

Mr Cameron says he is in favour of cutting taxes, but refuses to give details on specific pledges on tax reduction.

Then there was the controversial 'patients passport' policy, from the 2005 Tory election manifesto he helped write, which would have subsidised patients who sought private treatment away from the NHS, and which has subsequently been ditched.

He has also reversed Conservative policy on university tuition fees -- a Cameron government would not reverse the fees introduced by Labour, we are told.

And despite no end of Cameron charm offensives the Tories are still failing to make much of an impact on women voters.

However, last week he enlisted Channel Four's Location, Location, Location presenter Kirstie Allsopp to spruce up the Tories in the eye of the female voter. Although he has not revealed any new policies, he has outlined a series of areas in which he hoped to develop female-friendly policies, including flexible working, support for carers and childcare.