A perfect spad: young Cameron was as guided as a Navy missile

My wife, a keen gardener, has a cold-frame forcing pen. It contains privileged seedlings which, thus sheltered, are hardened off before planting. These are the star blooms of seasons to come.

In Britain’s New Establishment we call such specimens ‘ministerial special advisers’. They are placed in the Whitehall cold-frame and given special treatment. Within a few years these ‘spads’ become vigorous bushes. David Cameron and George Osborne used to be special advisers, as did all but one of the candidates in the recent Labour leadership contest. Nick Clegg was a special adviser in Brussels. The lucky lad worked for Leon Brittan when that housewives’ favourite was a European commissioner.

Spads tend to be young, assertive creatures, impervious to self-doubt, unmottled by the flaws of normal 20-somethings. I knew David Cameron slightly when he was Norman Lamont’s special adviser in 1992-93 and do not recall ever seeing him drunk or high or in the grip of girlfriend trouble.