Tory ire focuses on Dave’s uni friend

The grumbling in the Conservative party at the moment is reminiscent of Tudor court politics. No one is prepared to criticise the king directly so instead various personal favourites of the monarch are targeted.

At the moment, the chief proxy for discontent is Andrew Feldman. To the Cameroons’ critics, he sums up everything that is wrong with the way the PM and his team do politics.

Feldman is co-chairman of the party not because of his standing in the party or the country but because he is a friend of Cameron. To further irritate their critics, their friendship dates back to them serving together on the ball committee of their Oxford college many years ago.

As a friend of Cameron, Feldman has got away with errors that would have finished off others. He chose David Rowland as Tory treasurer. But Rowland was then forced to quit after days of negative stories in the press.