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Sumer Is Icumen In (some of us had to study Old English in the time before sanity) and with it, what now appears to be that annual set piece - the Prime Minister's drinks party.

Us regional journalists are assembled in a rather stuffy upstairs room in Downing Street.

It should have been the garden but the weather was a bit iffy.

What is it like to be there?

Less tardis like than you'd imagine. An ante-chamber, where you simply abandon your handbag in a pile on the floor - no one's going to lay a finger on it here.

Then a corridor, narrow, leading to another ante-chamber - it's all buttermilk and classic paintings, through to the staircase.

It's the famous staircase. The one with the pictures of all the Prime Ministers. Atlee, Macmillan and a big portrait of Campbell-Bannerman on the half landing - who actually died in Downing Street in 1908.

Eventually, after mini sausauge and mash, various ministers plus Nick Clegg and David Cameron, join the throng.

The Prime Minister looks well, tanned and fit, and he moves around the room, eyes flickering to the next encounter.

When it comes to our turn, Mr Cameron extols the virtues of Milton Keynes.
"Milton Keynes always strikes me as a place of growth with nice green spaces. I'm always there," he says.

And indeed he has visited at least twice, that I can recall.

"I'm in the east tomorrow too. Bedford then Easyjet in Luton."

I would like to ask him how the recent decision to include the east in the Greater London Area and deny it the that firms in other regions will benefit from, will go down in places like Luton with high unemployment rates of its own.

But his gaze has moved and he's gone.

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