Does Dave pass my common touch test?

NORMAN TEBBIT — who at 81 still retains some of his legendary polecat characteristics — points out that David Cameron’s many problems are made worse by the fact that he runs the country with the help of a privileged but politically inexperienced group of chums.

You don’t need to have met any of them to scent the whiff of entitlement, which hangs as heavy in the air around them as their Acqua di Parma aftershave. Nor can their flawless manners altogether disguise their arrogance.

They underestimate the electorate because their default position is that they are better than them — intellectually as well as socially. Such condescension is given away by the little things; as one letter writer to The Times noted drily, the most worrying aspect of Francis Maude’s remark about storing petrol was the assumption that everyone has a garage.

Of course, Cameron and his chums can’t help their upbringing. But they can help themselves. Here are my top three suggestions for ways to reacquaint themselves with the electorate during the Easter holidays.

1. Keep two children entertained for two weeks, with no extra help, on a budget of £50 a week. Among other things, you will need to explain why you can’t visit Thorpe Park/alton Towers/ lego land (where a family ticket for four costs around £100).

2. Redecorate a child’s bedroom over the bank holiday weekend, buying all the materials from a packed B&Q with typically un-user friendly self-service checkouts.

3. Book a two-week family summer holiday abroad for £2,000 or less.

After all, as Cameron himself is so fond of telling us, we’re all in this together . . .