Thank God I don’t have that ghastly sense of entitlement that Eton instils

I honestly didn’t realise I’d been to a ‘minor’ public school until my first term at Christ Church. Before that, I thought — as all of us did at my alma mater — that though of course there were lots of other public schools out there, Malvern could hold its head high with the very best of them. So coming up to Oxford was a bit of a shock. As far as the Etonians and Wyckhamists and Wets were concerned, my school was so obscure and worthless I might have attended a shabby comprehensive.

Among those who very much gave off this vibe was David Cameron. Dave was never aggressively snobbish but then Etonians are much subtler than that. They assert their superiority with tiny signifiers, like the way they talk about ‘school’ as if it has a capital S, and also with that weapons-grade charm. They’re so grand they don’t even look down on you, rather they feel awkward for you: ‘Such a pity, you poor dear chap, you didn’t have the education we did…’

Anyway, the other day I found myself back at Malvern for the first time in two decades and I felt instantly ashamed for ever having felt ashamed of it.