To Witney, in deepest Oxfordshire, to see David Cameron face his constituents. The showdown was set for high noon at the Corn Exchange. The crowd was very Middle England. Think WI, garden centre, Waitrose shoppers. I haven't seen so many men in V-neck jumpers in ages. If this was going to be a lynching, it was going to be a genteel one.

Dave arrived saying sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. My but he was contrite. Grovel, grovel, grovel. He wasn't just on the naughty step, he'd brought his own naughty step, labelled, so everyone could see it. It was a bit like a Politicians Anonymous outreach meeting. “Hi I'm Dave and I'm a politician!” he cried (or so I imagined) as he stood next to the stage, looking up at a sea of pastel colours and hair rinse.

It wasn't so much Dave Unplugged as Dave Confidential. He began by confessing all about his mortgage interest.

“Even though I am relatively well off, I still claim,” he said, looking a bit furtive. I loved that “relatively”. It is said that he and his wife are worth £30 million. (Dave, when asked about that, later, managed to look a bit shocked and said: “If so, I'd love to know what she's done with it!” The crowd laughed. The whole incident, with that graceful sidestep laced with charm, was very Tony Blair.) But I digress. Back in 2001, Dave took out a “quite big” mortgage of £350,000. Again, I liked that “quite big”. His mortgage interest was £1,700 a month. The pastel people leaned forward, for this was pure financial voyeurism.

In 2007 Dave managed to pay off £100,000 (as you do). He also began to claim for utilities. But no moats. “And no duck houses!” said a voter. “No duck houses!” trilled Dave, laughing a bit too hard. He told us all about the wistaria bill. It was too much information. As he explained the intricacies of his chimney venting, I felt a desire to take a nap.

The room, with its 200 people, was beginning to steam. Dave ripped off his city-slicker jacket (this is also a classic Tony Blair gesture). He said he knew people were angry and then, as if to prove how angry he was, he said Ukip didn't know their “arse from their elbow”. The moment he said “arse” he looked almost pleased. “And we are on TV!” he cried. But then Dave is always on TV, I think.

The crowd let rip in a very quiet way, more the sound of a zipper than a thunderclap but a noise nonetheless. They hated the greed, the Speaker, the sheer corruption of it all. Dave listened hard and kept saying how much he loved being their MP. I could see his grovel strategy was working: the pastel people hated politicians in general, but not Dave in particular.

But they had no sympathy. “It is said that some MPs are suffering from depression and talking about suicide,” said one woman with a Minnie Mouse voice. “Well, we would really, really like to see them hanging from the lampposts!” As I said, a very genteel lynching. There will be hanging baskets of flowers on those lampposts too.

Dave also has no sympathy (as his party is finding out). “I agree that MPs having depression is not an issue,” he said. “They should be depressed about what's happened.” Then he grovelled some more.

Times Recommends

• Oh no, Mr Darling: you have failed
• BBC survives dogfight over Kennel Club expose
• Where the Rosetta belongs can’t be set in stone