My son grazed his knee at school yesterday. And, in this political-correctness-gone-mad, Human-Rights-Act-culture, health-and-safety-bonkers world, do you know what happened? The teacher put a plaster on. The teacher put a plaster on his knee.

Surely not? Surely this cannot happen? David Cameron was quite explicit in his speech: “Teachers can't put a plaster on a child's grazed knee without calling a first-aid officer.” But, dear reader, she did.

Mr Cameron's main claim to our attention is that he is a new type of Tory: “I get the modern world,” he said, in his best Vicar of St Albion fashion. But if he gets the modern world, he doesn't seem to like it very much.

Exams have been dumbed down; children get top marks for swearing; proper English spelling has descended into anarchy; the Army doesn't have enough helicopters; Jobcentres hand out money to single mothers (they don't want to work you know); Europe is out to get you (of course); children are shooting each other (most of them are drunk, might as well live on the Gaza Strip); the police spend all day filling out forms rather than catching armed criminals; people should jolly well get married and stay married; nurses have been replaced by computers; politicians are in it for the plasma screens; nobody is ever allowed to lift a box for fear of putting his back out; and it's impossible to have a business because regulation makes it illegal.

Oh dear. This is the after-dinner speech of the warm-up man at the local Chamber of Commerce do. This is the impromptu rant of the man in the Pringle jumper at the 19th hole.

This wasn't the only speech Mr Cameron gave. There was another one, cleverly woven into the country-gone-to-the-dogs script. That alternative speech was all about ending child poverty, loving the NHS, a clean environment, pulling up the roots of crime and opening up life chances.

It is, just about, possible to believe both of these speeches. But nobody does. The person who claps the first one tends to sit on his hands for the second. So who is David Cameron?

He said that his party has had the courage to change. Tony Blair used to say exactly the same thing and it wasn't really true. Labour just wanted to win so it kept quiet. But Tony Blair genuinely disagreed with his party. It was his dirty secret that, in the end, they cottoned on to.

It may be that David Cameron takes on his party only because it looks good. But there could be another, very simple, explanation for this outburst. It could be what he actually thinks.

Philip Collins is a Times leader writer

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