Mind Your Grammar, Mr Cameron

I'M a broken man.

For weeks since the grammar school debate was sparked, I've managed to keep my trap shut because, admittedly, I know more about Benazir Bhutto's bunions that I do about grammar schools.

It kicked off while I was sunning my girth in Menorca. I just kept hoping the row would blow over so I wouldn't have to comment on it.

But I switched on the news last night and the BBC's Nick Robinson (nice bloke, he came up and chatted to me in the press gallery at Westminster a few years ago) was there grilling David Cameron over it.

My resolve was shattered.

To be honest, I couldn't really give a fig about grammar schools, having never stepped foot in one.

I'm told we don't have any in Lancashire so this is basically a row about a few counties in the south of England and an ideological row about a system which in the main died out years ago.

Although you wouldn't know it reading the Daily Mail, my paper of choice while on hols, as day-by-day it was getting increasingly hot under its starched collar about the Tories' so called "abandoning" of the sector.

It's so typical though that if it's affecting south England, then they think the rest of the country cares. I doubt they do, because believe me it certainly isn't a burning issue among my friends, family or colleagues.

The Conservatives have to be careful or this will turn into another Europe, an issue which made sure they came completely unelectable from 1992 onwards.

David Cameron must regain a tight grip of his party because if there's one thing voters hate, it's the political chattering classes indulging in protracted bouts of navel-gazing and infighting, something the national Tories have mastered down to a fine art in recent years.

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