As the daughter of Ugandan-Asian immigrants who ran newsagents in west London, the 44-year-old does not have the typical Tory background.
He came from a conventional high Tory background, grew up in Finchley, North London, went to Highgate public school, and it was only at university - Keele - that he began to be interested in politics.
Like some other Tories from a non-Tory background, Pickles has contempt for Labour as an institution, although he insists he is quite friendly with individuals from the party and hates no one in politics.
As it has turned out, though, there is a public sensitivity about senior Tories' backgrounds that will not go away, no matter how many slightly anxious Cameron soundbites (eg "What counts is not where you come from but where you are going", the line chucked at journalists by the PM's spokesman yesterday) are dreamed up to deal with it.
Cameron, who has a traditional Tory shire background, appears to have cemented a relationship with Obama, who hails from the urban progressive left.
It isn't right to hold the wealthy Tory's privileged background against him, but where the capital's community relations are concerned Khan's life experience makes his opponent's very sheltered one look a potential liability for the city.
A Tory donor with a background in accountancy, investment banking and house building?
When David Cameron became leader of the Conservative party in 2005, it had been 40 years since the last privately educated Tory leader of aristocratic background, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, stepped down.
(The recent scandal over Derek Conway, a Tory MP of modest background who apparently fiddled his expenses and sent his sons to a posh school, was among other things a little parable of this economic trend).
"There are more important things to do with your money than leave it to your kids" Old politics Labour background; joined Tories at 18. "I realised the state held everyone down to one level and its provision of goods and services was not up to anything like the choice or quality that the private sector could provide" New politics Increasingly a maverick.
The Tories have a weaker background in that area, so perhaps they're holding back their money for a late push into message-based advertising towards the end of the campaign.
