Well, this is a surprise: it seems that if I were to join the stampede to become Conservative leader — overlooking the marginally inconvenient fact that I am neither an MP nor a member of the party — I could categorise myself as a true man of the people.

I owe this insight to the housing minister, Kit Malthouse, who last week declared himself the latest challenger for the job of party leader (and therefore prime minister) through the medium of The Sun. Malthouse revealed that “my mum and dad were the first in their families to go to university” and the newspaper observed he was in “marked contrast to the race’s two public school-educated frontrunners Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson”. Actually, Malthouse was privately