A sure sign of a political party utterly out of ideas… it’s like bowling a beamer at a batsman whose just belted you for three fours and a six off consecutive balls.

But I had a taste of it on my second day at school, when someone said “Imagine if you were a townie”. All innocence, I asked what a townie was, and it was explained that it was a lower class person who wore shiny tracksuits. “But I have a shiny tracksuit!” I admitted somewhat unwisely. Dead silence fell across the class. Then someone said “Well, the Rules don’t apply to her, she’s Australian” and everyone relaxed.

Spooky.

One thing I observed from living and working in The City is just how bloody adaptable the English upper classes are. But those major public (boarding) schools really do cement the hierarchy in a way that is unimaginable in Australia. And despite Oxbridge bending over backwards to recruit more lower class types, the success rate is not good.