One of the defining features of his leadership was the allegation that he favoured a small clique of "chums", preferring to surround himself with people from backgrounds as privileged as his own and inclined to give jobs to chaps he'd been at Eton with.

The reality was more nuanced (his circle of political friends is a bit more varied than that, and not quite as snobbish as that) but there was something in the criticism: with Cameron you were either U or non-U, and you knew it too.

Mr Cameron's loyalty to his set is strong: he's determined to ensure that people who stood by him are properly looked after. Personally, that's probably something we should applaud: it's certainly a more attractive attitude than the alternative. What would we think of a man who simply turned his back on his own people?