Guest blog by Asa Bennett

This week David Cameron visited his old politics tutor and the professor of government at Oxford University, Vernon Bogdanor. The meeting, taking place in Woodstock's St Mary Magdalene Church as part of the local Literary Festival, drew so many people that every pew was full and latecomers were watching the discussion from the very back of the church.

In keeping with the festival's literary theme, Cameron was first interrogated over what books shaped his political ethos. The Conservative leader revealed, surprisingly, that he was influenced by various works written by Labour supporters — like Tony Benn's ‘Arguments for Democracy’, which he described as a “powerful book” and all the writings of George Orwell; but he still read widely from conservative political thinkers, like Friedrich Hayek. Cameron showed a wide interest in literature as he praised Graham Greene's work and admitted that he was reading Jason Burke's ‘Al Qaeda — The True Story of Radical Islam’.

After this foray into Cameron's political journey, as he expounded on his aversion to big government and his desire to help people, the discussion moved to a more inclusive tone as Cameron took questions from audience members. As expected for a man who cultivated a reputation for “no-notes” speech-making, he handled all questions well — even when they were somewhat unconventional (“Our country is full, will you reduce the population of the UK?” asked one audience member alarmingly, but he was deftly met by Cameron with “Absolutely not, actually, I hope to increase the population by one...”).

Over the course of half an hour, he lambasted New Labour for treating Parliament like a “legislative sausage-machine”, pledged to start opening up the Government by displaying receipts on-line, acknowledging that the Internet has a significant role to play in politics. The Tory leader shunned New Labour's headline-grabbing approach to politics as “pandering to impatience” and, displaying his appreciation of Orwell's writing, explained for his plan to scrap I.D cards that “the state is our servant, not our master”. Cameron also offered a ringing endorsement of open primaries, the more inclusive method of candidate selection that we have seen used in Bedford and Totnes, and rebuffed any criticism over their cost as being worthwhile for improving democratic accessibility.

As the final questions were being asked, Cameron reaffirmed his pledge to offer Britain a referendum over the Lisbon Treaty, which he criticised as being “wrongly ratified and implemented”, and promised to put the ban on hunting imposed by Labour to a free vote (admitting that he personally opposed the ban). It seemed, as Professor Bogdanor himself joked, that his former “brilliant student”, David Cameron, had now been able to give him a thorough tutorial in politics.