All changed, however, under Mrs Thatcher. My one complaint about Rees's excellent book is that he does not give enough attention to the moment when all the public schools, including Eton, began to be embarrassed by their traditional connection with a privileged elite - if only because, in spite of its privileges, this elite had badly let the side down by presiding over "the winter of discontent". Too many upper-class twits; too many old school ties; that was the indictment written and rewritten by Anthony Sampson in his bestselling Anatomies of Britain. Visiting Stowe during this period, I remember being told that whereas once upon a time they boasted to prospective parents about Old Stoics like the Victoria Cross winner, Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, now it was Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Airlines, whose name they preferred to drop. Henceforth it was to be entrepreneurs and bankers, rather than statesmen and bishops, which the public schools sought to produce, with today's desperate results.

Time for second thoughts, surely. Hardly anything could be worse than our present governing class. If the public schools can't do better than that, then their charitable status - historically justified by their role in producing good rulers - should indeed be withdrawn. What about Old Etonian David Cameron and his mainly public school colleagues? Don't they give us grounds for hope? Unfortunately not, because instead of wearing their old school ties proudly - as badges of honour and symbols of authoritative leadership - they feel it necessary to hide them away as if a public school education was a source of shame rather than of pride. Indeed, the very idea of leadership seems to have become a dirty word. Instead of public schools seeking to instil habits of authority, they prefer to produce only greedier versions of the common man. The frightened sheep look up and what do they see? Not the man on the white horse but nice Mr Cameron on his bicycle.