We may all be Etonians now, but the important thing is not where you were sent to school, it is with whom you chose to go to university, and there can be no doubting there has been a seismic shift within the party from Cambridge to Oxford.

Funny place, Cambridge. I have visited it just the once, for the annual Bullingdon meet with the Pitt Club, which involved some sport in the afternoon (shooting, usually) followed by a slap-up dinner (cross-dressing not obligatory, but encouraged). It was, if memory serves, staggeringly cold, although almost certainly colder for Osborne, who ambitiously opted to walk down King's Parade on an October evening dressed in chiffon.

It was also very boring. The kind of town where one might have the misfortune to bump into not only Norman Fowler but also Selwyn Gummer. Both are of course alumni of the university (I know it was easier to get into in those days, but really . . . ) and members of the self-styled Cambridge Mafia, an organisation about as threatening as blancmange and one now reduced to Ken Clarke.

We have been firm friends since I brought him back into the fold during a birdwatching holiday in Panama. Therefore, it will not surprise you that, given the choice between watching Pakistan with the Justice Secretary or actually travelling to the place with the PM, I opted for the former.

Ken and I made a proper day of it at Trent Bridge. The morning and afternoon sessions were a delight, with the minister producing a bravura demonstration of how to wind up the civil service, culminating in his "Please send me the key to my red box" message, conveyed via the Test Match Special team, with whom we celebrated the close of play.

It was all perfectly delightful (my dear thing this, my dear thing that) until a man named Aggers, or something similarly minor-public-school, introduced himself and insisted on talking politics. There is a time and a place for such a thing, and the fag end of a two-hamper day at the cricket is neither. On and on he went. Ken straight-batted every delivery until, er, Aggers (?), presumably now clean out of political ideas, leaned forward and whispered, "Any chance of a safe seat?"

“Sorry?" replied Ken.

“Fast track into the Commons. I've always fancied being an MP. The cricket's a sideline, really."

“Should be a by-election in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath soon," said Ken. "Fancy it?"

“Terrific. That's tremendous of you. Have you met Blowers?"