Until last Friday, had even the most insightful political pundit offered to name the men and women who will lead the Conservative Party 20 years from now, I would have regarded that person as one member short of a Cabinet. Yes, there might have been a time when one could reel off recent presidents of the Oxford Union as future prime ministers, but those days are gone, I would have said. Now it is nigh on impossible to see the next leaders coming.

I would have been wrong. Last Friday the scales fell from my eyes when I read, in this newspaper, that David Cameron had appointed Andrew Feldman as chief executive of the Conservative Party. Cameron had met Feldman at Brasenose College, Oxford, where “the pair helped to organise its May ball”. Twenty years later they were organising the Conservative Party. It seems the best way to prepare for organising a party is ... to organise a party.

This week I set off for Oxford to meet the latest Brasenose Ball Committee, to get in early and shake hands with the men and women who will one day occupy the Tory front bench.

The college hustings to decide the president of the 2009 Brasenose ball took place in the spring term. It was an unusually animated affair, I was told, chiefly because the event will coincide with the college's 500th anniversary. This ball is going to be big.

“It was brutal,” said Catherine Hill, 19, a first-year law student who was one of the candidates. “Apparently it was one of the longest hustings they had ever had.”

In her manifesto, Hill described herself as a safe pair of hands, a candidate with a proven track record. “During the sixth form,” she wrote, “I was the person people turned to when something needed to be done on time.”

Duncan Turnbull, 19, a PPE student and rival candidate, said: “The big thing was how you were going to make the ball stand out. One of the answers to that was a champagne reception; I wanted people to look back and think: that college may have good food and fireworks but Brasenose put on a bloody good champagne reception.”

Towards the end of a gruelling interrogation, Amreet Kang, 19, an economics and management student from Birmingham, demanded that all the candidates give a solo performance of Total Eclipse of the Heart. “I wanted to know what they would do if the sound went out,” he said.

Hill still regards the incident as quite traumatic. Turnbull also seems keen to forget about it, although apparently he gave a moving performance, getting down on one knee and singing to a student called Glen in the front row.

He won a landslide victory in the subsequent poll. “I think there was a combination of reasons,” said Kang. “One is that he runs his own business.” Turnbull began selling rare-breed pigs on the internet at the age of 13 and has since built a successful meat company, paying his way through university with the profits.

Soon Turnbull was making efforts to reach out and listen to his new constituency, holding a referendum on the theme for the ball. He appointed an 18-strong committee, including some of his former rivals.

Seven members of this committee were waiting to meet me in a room overlooking Brasenose chapel. They were charming, intelligent and mainly middle-class; most, though not all, were public-school educated. Was I staring at the future of the Conservative Party?

One of the early tasks, they said, was attracting sponsorship by establishing a relationship with big firms in the City. The overall budget is yet to be agreed, and not all the plans can be revealed at this stage, lest they be stolen by rival party organisers. But marketing would be extremely important.

I had to ask. “Are any of you doing this with an eye on one day leading the Conservatives?” I said.

There was an awkward silence. “I don't think so,” said Turnbull. “It's just like getting involved in anything else at university.” Of course, this is precisely the response that one would expect from a future leader of Her Majesty's Opposition. The Times columnist Camilla Cavendish was a student at Brasenose in the late 1980s, when Cameron and Feldman were organising the May ball. “I didn't even know they had organised it,” she said. “They weren't really involved in politics. That's the whole point. Cameron wasn't climbing up the greasy pole.”

Cameron was in charge of procuring entertainment for the ball and won plaudits for securing the services of Dr Feelgood, a pub-rock band from Canvey Island in Essex. Speaking from outside the London Astoria, where he was setting up a concert, Chris Fenwick, the band's veteran manager, said: “I do remember the gig. We were on with Toots and the Maytals. But do I remember the spotty student who paid us on the night? How can I put it? No.”

Was it not quite a coup to have attracted Dr Feelgood to Brasenose? “If someone dangles enough money in front of us, we'll do the somersaults,” Fenwick replied.

Francis Elliott, the deputy political editor of The Times, who co-wrote a recent biography of Cameron, opined that the friendly, non-adversarial atmosphere at Brasenose had probably served as a “decompression chamber” for the future Conservative leader, where he could meet people from outside his narrow social set.

“It was mixing but not brutal mixing,” he said. “Boris Johnson went from Eton to Balliol, which was a left-wing college. It was quite a shock. That's not how it was for Cameron. He wasn't forced to be a Tory boy. He could fit in and melt into the background. That's very much the story of his rise.”

So, if the Brasenose College Quincentenary Ball (www.bncball.co.uk) is in safe hands, what can one predict for the current members of the ball committee?

In private, some admitted a slight interest in the Conservative Party. Chris Adams, 19, a comprehensive-educated classics student from North Yorkshire, thought that if he became involved with any party it would “probably be the left wing of the Tory party - the one-nation thing”.

Oliver Field-Johnson, 19, an Old Harrovian maths student, was hoping “to do something in the City for ten years, then go into politics”. He was concerned that British politics has become shallow: “Everyone is doing it for the votes rather than what's good for the country,” he said. He felt strongly about plenty of political questions but was reluctant to say what they were. “It's a sensitive issue, the whole Cameron thing,” he said. “I worry about being on his path, going to the same college.”

The rest were harder to pin down. When asked what she would do if she were running the country 20 years from now, Emma Radford, a first-year classics student, said: “Oh gosh, I have no idea.” Alice Gledhill (third year classics, and Brasenose ball's chief designer) sounded more promising. Her role, she said, was “to create a different world”. That sounded like a bold manifesto for change if ever I heard one.

But surely Turnbull is a Conservative prime minister in waiting? “Definitely not,” he said. Yet he has fought and won a hustings, I persisted. But for the singing, that might have been the selection process for a Tory MP.

“The election is a small part of my job. It's all about delivering,” he said.

Isn't that what David Cameron would have said 21 years ago? “I suppose he might have,” said Turnbull, thoughtfully. “I think he probably was ambitious, but secretly. I don't believe he didn't have political aspirations.”

If and when the Brasenose Ball Committee takes over the running of this country, we can expect fireworks. The administration will seek funding from big business for service provision. Current immigration controls may well be scrapped in favour of a so-called “ticketing system”. And we can all expect a bloody good champagne reception.

Wannabe the US President?

Join Skull and Bones, the secret society of Yale University. Each year 15 graduates are invited to become members: among them have been George W. Bush and five members of his Administration, his father, President George Bush, and William Howard Taft, the 27th US President. John Kerry, the failed presidential candidate, was a member, too.

Wannabe a top journalist?

Join the Oxford University Conservative Association. Lord Rees-Mogg, a former member, would go on to edit The Times; Nick Robinson, a former president, is now political editor of the BBC.

Wannabe a US entertainer?

It's harder now, but until the mid-Nineties the Mickey Mouse Club was the way. Anyone could join - members signed up for their pair of mouse ears, which they wore while watching the TV show of the same name. A more exclusive group of children appeared on the show itself. Among the early members was Annette Funicello, who became a bikini-clad movie star. More recent alumni have included Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera and Ryan Gosling, the Oscar-nominated actor.

Wannabe an actor?

Join the Cambridge University dramatic society, Footlights. Former members include Douglas Adams, Stephen Fry, John Cleese, Emma Thompson and even Germaine Greer. You don't have to attend Cambridge to join, though, as Footlights now also admits students from Anglia Ruskin University.

Wannabe a wild Tory?

Join the Bullingdon Club, the hard-drinking, white-tie-and-tails-wearing, restaurant-trashing association that was satirised by Evelyn Waugh in Decline and Fall. Former members include Alan Clark and Boris Johnson. David Cameron was a member, too - a fact that he would prefer people to forget.

Wannabe an Aussie singer?

Join the cast of Neighbours. Some acting experience may be required, but not much. Alumni include Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Natalie Imbruglia and Delta Goodrem.

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