Comment: Exciting times at the Tories' feeder school

Most of the shadow cabinet was there, but so too were Blairite guru Will Hutton, BBC executives and even Tory defector Quentin Davies. By the time shadow chancellor George Osborne, the guest of honour, made a confident speech, a crowd was having to listen from the foyer.

The meteoric rise of Policy Exchange as a chic hang-out as well as the intellectual boot camp of Tory modernisers parallels the dominance of the Conservative modernisers under David Cameron.

It was set up in 2002 by Nicholas Boles, an openly gay young businessman and a member of what would come to be known as the Notting Hill set, alongside Cameron and Osborne, Rachel Whetstone, Ed Vaizey and other young Tory modernisers.

Mr Boles, a former London mayoral hopeful, supplied many of Boris Johnson's policies and was made his acting chief of staff. His key role is to advise Cameron on how hard experience at City Hall can help prepare a future Conservative government for office. He is a close ally of arch-moderniser Francis Maude, who heads the preparations unit.

Times journalist Anthony Browne took over as director last year, and his crossover to City Hall is entirely in keeping with PE's role as a feeder school to the party.

The founding chairman of PE was Michael Gove, the Times columnist and a former flatmate of Boles, who is now shadow education secretary and one of the Tories' fastest rising and most articulate stars.

By 2006, the group was pulling in more than £1 million a year in donations and pouring out reports that pushed subjects like affordable housing and the environment up the Tory agenda.