David Cameron was a guest on the Radio 4 programme You and Yours yesterday and, for a moment, I wondered if they had changed the name to “You and Your Dinner Party”. It was exactly like one of those exhausting middle-class events during which no one will shut up about schools, property prices and cycle lanes. One could almost taste the rocket and Rioja.

I kept thinking that surely someone, anyone, would ask him if he has ever taken Class A drugs but then I remembered that that was far too interesting for Radio 4 listeners. For they are hooked on something that is just as addictive: the overwhelming desire to know where David Cameron is going to send his children to school. It is not that they would like to know, it is that they have to know. It is a compulsion.

I am not sure what would have happened if Mr Cameron had been coy. Possibly he would be forced to undergo a Radio 4 version of extreme deprivation, such as having to drink wine from a box, sleep on cheap nylon sheets or (shudder) eat tinned fruit salad. It is hard to say but, for sure, he would have to live without risotto and ciabatta for life.

Mr Cameron knows all of this, for he is posh and has had to study the ways of the middle classes. He believes that, to become prime minister, he must at least be able to fake being of the tribe. His downwardly mobile journey has been lonely but, on the basis of yesterday’s appearance, he is doing rather well.

Mr Cameron (sorry, Dave) took every opportunity to emphasise how incredibly normal he is. At the earliest chance he dropped in the shocking news that he had taken care of his own children. “I had half-term last week and I spent a day or so on my own and it was exhausting!”

The question we had all been waiting for came from a woman called Myra Little. “Will you send your child to a state school?” As the words were uttered I swear that I could hear women across Britain stop drinking their (green) tea in mid-sip.

Dave was ready. “Well, I’ve got three children, as I’m constantly reminded in the middle of the night!”

Yes, said Peter White, the presenter, severely, but Myra wants to know about your commitment. “Let me run through them,” chuckled Dave. “My son Ivan, who is 4½, is at a state special school, which is a fantastic place for children with cerebral palsy. My daughter, Nancy, uh, planning to go to a state school in Central London. My son Elwen, who is only one . . . We haven’t made any plans for him, but I would hope he would go to a local state school.”

So, Peter demanded with dinner party ruthlessness, Nancy would go to your neighbourhood school? “Well, no,” demurred Dave. “I am quite a fan of faith schools and we are looking at a church school we are very keen on but we will have to see what places are available.”

This was tantalising stuff. Peter probed further. “I do worry that some of the primary schools,” noted Dave, pausing delicately. “Maybe I am being overprecious and protective of my daughter, but you sort of feel that your small child is going to go into the ENORMOUS state primary school and might get a bit lost. I do think that some of the church schools do have a bit more familiarity and scale.”

With that, Dave moved to property prices, which are, yes, too high.

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