One hesitates to deflect “Dave” Cameron from his quest to become the hippest dude to lead the Tory party since Iain “King of the Rave” Duncan Smith. It’s not right to come between a man and his destiny. But I wonder whether Dave has thought through the implications of making his party more appealing to yuppies and hoodies, rather than the solid burghers of Middle England who have unwaveringly placed their Xs in the Tory box since time immemorial.

Take his pronouncement in The Times last week. “One of the things I’m trying to persuade my party of,” he declared, “is that not every policy should start with the words ‘bring back’.” Hmm. It’s a cute soundbite. It will doubtless raise titters in the Notting Hill winebars where young Tory “thinkers” plot how to take over the world.

But does it make electoral sense? It strikes me that there are millions of people who would be much more likely to vote for the Tories if all their policies began with the words “bring back”. A craving for the deeply unfashionable, for useful things that have disappeared without trace (or, worse still, been abolished by meddlesome modernisers inside and outside government), for the politically incorrect but emotionally right . . . these are quintessential elements in the British character. Henry Lyte’s immortal line — “Change and decay in all around I see” — could be our national epithet. Millions feel an impotent frustration at the passing of cherished things. And any politician who taps into that collective disquiet will never be short of supporters.

Here, then, in no particular order except the doubtless very Freudian order in which they occur to my addled old brain, are some of the things I think any incoming government should promise to bring back:

Traffic lights that don’t keep everyone on red for 90 seconds while non-existent pedestrians don’t cross the road

Real people, rather than electronic voices, answering the phones of giant corporations that can easily afford to employ them

The village stocks for louts and hooligans, rather than useless ASBOs

Opal Fruits — I still can’t bring myself to ask for a packet of “Starburst”

Unpretentious pub names such as The Midland Arms that were considered perfectly adequate for two or three centuries, then discarded in favour of synthetic, faux-Irish nonsenses such as “The Claddagh Ring”

Bus conductors, park keepers, and all those other “redundant” public servants whose merry banter and reassuring presence used to cheer up the lives of the elderly

Politicians who did something in their lives before politics

Small kids playing conkers or hopscotch, rather than “chatt’n” on their mobiles

Untrendy, old-fashioned raincoats that do what their name suggests, ie, keep the rain off one’s clothes, but which I now have to go to New York to buy — am I asking for the moon here?

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