There was a twinkle about David Cameron that was new yesterday. He was holding a press conference for no apparent reason except, of course, that he could. I am convinced that the event was staged for one person and one person only and that was Gordon Brown. Sadly Gordon was at the Treasury, practising his smile in preparation for the great national tour (lock your doors now).

It is a shame really, for Dave had gone to a great deal of trouble. He had booked a room at St Stephen’s Club. It is quite near the Treasury and, crucially, has a portrait of Churchill. This allowed Dave to be photographed with Winston a number of times. This is a bit of a coup, given the fact that Winston has been dead for 42 years. Gordon will be furious, for he thinks of Winston as a personal friend who shares his love of courage.

Mr Cameron swept in, radiating his very own special combination of confidence and blankness. How does he do it? I’m not sure (vitamin pills? face cream?), but it is very effective. Plus, of course, there was now the twinkle. I think it was pure mischievousness but, again, Gordon will be aching over it. He is still learning to smile, so twinkling is way too advanced.

Dave accused Tony Blair of behaving like a pop star. This will thrill our Prime Minister (it seems a bit weird now to call him that) who has always wanted to be exactly that. “In this country we don’t do farewell tours,” said Dave. “Tony Blair was elected to be Prime Minister, not a pop star.”

At this, Gordon will start to frown (overcoming the tiny rubber bands attached to the special “smile brace” in his mouth). The bit about Tony being elected was especially wounding. It is not Gordo’s fault that everyone in the Labour Party is too scared to run against him.

At least Dave isn’t afraid. That much is obvious. He told us he was passionate about education and that the NHS was his priority. Gordon had said exactly that last week. I could almost hear the “I said it first!” bellow from the Treasury.

Dave explained that he is passionate about education but not grammar schools. “I think there is a slight fantasy element to this debate.” The Tories, when in power, had not created new grammars and no one was campaigning now for new ones. “So we have been debating something that we didn’t do, that we were not going to do and, even if we did do, it would have been undone.”

Dave spent two days last week as a teaching assistant in Hull. This has made him an expert on education (not to mention passion) and he has a plan to save our schools. Details are sketchy but it involves discipline and rocket boosters. He knows it will work: he had a vision in Hull.

Yes, noted one hack, but you went to Eton. Dave did not so much twinkle as strobe now: “I think it is backward-looking, class-ridden and completely out of date to try and use someone’s own educational experience and say that means you cannot understand the need for other people to have life chances.”

He then changed tack. “That is not an accusation that is made against Tony Blair or Ed Balls.”

Now Dave could have picked other privately educated names (Ruth Kelly or, say, Jack Straw). But instead he chose Ed Balls, who is Gordon’s best friend. How personal is that? It certainly made Dave smile but then, if you went to Eton, smiling is easy.

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