We will never be able to look at David Cameron in the same way. If revenge was the aim, then the gleeful storm on Twitter yesterday (#piggate) certainly delivered. Lord Ashcroft might as well not have bothered with the rest of his new biography of the Prime Minister, Call Me Dave.

The first day of newspaper serialisation – alleging that Mr Cameron "put a private part of his anatomy" into a dead pig’s mouth in a bizarre club initiation ceremony at Oxford University – turned the Prime Minister into a global joke. The tale brightened all our Monday mornings, oink, oink. Being laughed at is uncomfortable for a politician. But being laughed at for that!

Is it true? Not judging by the grin George Osborne could barely suppress when he was quizzed about it, nor by the cold disdain coming from Downing Street. But even if it is true, what would this close encounter with a pig’s head tell us about Mr Cameron? Only that he was possibly drunk at the time?

I find the allegation less troubling than his alleged membership of (another) club of public schoolboys. Though it was dedicated to excess, high camp and ostentatious decadence, former guests say it amounted to little more than rich boys having fancy dress parties and getting off with girls.

It’s not the morality that troubles me. It’s the exclusivity, and the fact that it wouldn’t surprise me if Mr Cameron had joined a club like that. The latest revelations or smears – take your pick – go to the heart of what has always worried me about the Prime Minister: his lack of social awareness back then; his lack of it now. In his Britain, the elite thrives and so do foodbanks.

It’s all of a piece with membership of the Bullingdon Club at Oxford. Back as far as 1928 Evelyn Waugh parodied that in his novel, Decline and Fall. He called it The Bollinger and said it consisted of "epileptic royalty from their villas of exile; uncouth peers from crumbling country seats; smooth young men of uncertain tastes from embassies and legations; illiterate lairds from wet granite hovels in the Highlands; ambitious young barristers and Conservative candidates torn from the London season and the indelicate advances of debutantes; all that was most sonorous of name and title".

Not a lot had changed by the time Mr Cameron shelled out for the ridiculous uniform that can cost thousands of pounds; an effective way of restricting membership to those of like fortune.

Why do I object? Because, by the age of 19 or 20, he should have known better. Mr Cameron was born wealthy and intelligent. He was further privileged with the best British education can offer: Eton and Oxford. Internationally and historically, it doesn’t get much better than that. He was really, really lucky.

How, by the time he left school, could he fail to know how fortunate he’d been? He must have been aware of the inequalities in society. The same goes for everyone born into wealth. The best will attempt to do something to redress the balance. Others will play down where and what they come from. They will forge friendships of like interest, not like income group. The rest, the ones who cling together, who shut others out and flag up their privilege with extortionate uniforms and displays of conspicuous consumption are ... what? Crass. Insensitive. Boorish. But, as a political background in this day and age, it’s worse than that.

Our Prime Minister numbers amongst them, as does the Chancellor and the Mayor of London. They felt entitled and they wanted the world to know.

It’s not a character trait I admire.

Time has passed of course. Mr Cameron, Mr Osborne and Boris Johnson should be wiser now. I hope they are. But the trait that took them into the Bullingdon club still shows. It’s why so many were prepared to believe Lord Ashcroft’s allegations yesterday, true or not. That same attitude shows too often in what they say and in what they fail to say. It stands between them and the affection of the nation.

I don’t applaud what Lord Ashcroft has done. His biography appears to be score-settling for Mr Cameron not rewarding his party's former deputy chairman with a job in 2010. I often find the teller of the tale more despicable than the culprit of the story. But Lord Ashcroft did make a good point. He said that, while Margaret Thatcher conveyed to the country that her government’s aim was to bring prosperity to all, David Cameron has failed to voice any similar message.

He doesn’t speak the language of social justice, which is why people feel he won’t deal with it. Nor has he found a way to speak that addresses Britain in its entirety, rich and poor.

Mr Cameron is not alone in appearing to suffer from a decrease in compassion for the masses with an increase in wealth. According to American psychologist Paul Piff, assistant professor of psychology and social behaviour at the University of California, Berkeley, growing wealthier doesn’t make us nicer people.

If we even think about being wealthy we can start to feel superior, more deserving and less empathetic. We are more punitive towards the poor and less willing to look after the vulnerable.

Wealthy philanthropists like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are not the norm. In fact the top 20 per cent of American society gives 1.3 per cent of its income to charity whereas the bottom 20 per cent gives 3.2 per cent. It seems that the more insulated we become from people in need, the more dampened are our charitable impulses. As a rule of thumb the poor give to the needy, the rich to the arts.

It’s interesting because it’s common to us all. And what of MrCameron’s former colleague Lord Ashcroft? He claims revenge was not his intent. He has, however, paid in kind the man who wounded him. In so doing he has also exposed his own over-weaning sense of entitlement.

Lord Ashcroft devoted years of his time and £8 million to rescuing the Conservative Party and steering it to victory. Clearly he felt he deserved thanks. But in what form should that have been?

He says he was given the impression that Mr Cameron had a senior job for him. When it didn’t materialize he felt affronted. But since when were senior government jobs for sale? I don’t know which job he expected but I abhor the attitude that it was his due.

Anyone who donates time or money to a political party needs to grasp that to donate means to give, not to buy. And it’s past time that every political party made that crystal clear. The steady parade of donors into the House of Lords sends a very different message.

Well, one rich, entitled man felt used and abused by another. As Mr Cameron settled into Downing Street, Lord Ashcroft was left feeling belittled, humiliated, made a fool of. And yesterday the man who did that to him, got to know how it felt.

It’s a high-stakes game for members of an elite club. I think the rest of us, the electorate, are entitled to something better and a prime minister who by now should have found a common touch.