HOWZAT

Does he have any input? Or does he trust you to just to do it all on your own? “What do you mean, does he trust me to do it?” she says testily. “That’s a very strange, 1950s question . . . "

My husband wouldn’t trust me to do it, I say. “Well you may have got a good deal because, believe me, it’s a terrible chore doing all the family finances. I don’t know how I ended up taking it up.”

Perhaps George can afford to have a more relaxed attitude to money than the rest of us; after all he is the scion of the Osbornes of Osborne & Little, the posh wallpaper people. Is George a proper family man?

“Oh yes, when he’s there he’s terrific. He got up in the night, he was properly hands-on, changing nappies and everything. He’s very domestic, a ferocious washer-up and very tidy and he cooks a great fish stew. I do the basics, day to day, fill up the fridge, make sure there is food for the kids, but at the weekend, when friends come round for supper on a Saturday night, he’ll cook something spectacular.” Typical man - and very new Tory.

The couple met while Frances (who trained as a barrister after Oxford University but found the bar “rather lonely”) was working in the City. “He so loved his job and was so enthused about what he was doing that I thought I’ve got to do something I love too.”

She had always wanted to be a writer and decided to go for it, first acting as a contributing editor to Frank magazine and then writing leaders for The Daily Telegraph before writing her successful first book, Lilla’s Feast.

They married when she was 29, and their first child was born 18 months later just after George became an MP in 2001. (He and Cameron were both part of the 2001 MP intake).

“I had had a caesarean. And I remember lying in hospital feeling awful with George sitting next to me with this mighty mailbag of letters from constituents, trying to hire a secretary and helping me change the baby’s nappies.”

Does she share the Cameron family’s relaxed policy of having the children in the limelight (the Camerons famously allowed the cameras in to film breakfast) or will she go the Gordon Brown route (keeping the kids hidden)?

“Policy is such a terrifying word. I try not to have a policy on anything much; telly-time policy, computer-time policy. I’m trying to have a computer-time policy at the moment but I keep having to give in because I’ve got work to do.”

It is a pretty good politician’s answer. Unlike the Camerons, the Osbornes have chosen to educate their children privately. Frances says this was for purely logistical reasons. The state church school they used to attend was too far away while their new prep school is five minutes from home and is George’s alma mater.

Juggling a career and children is never easy for parents who both have jobs but being a writer who can work while the children are at school is pretty ideal as far as working motherhood goes.

“I love having children, taking them to school and then retreating to my study at the top of the house. I have six precious hours to write; there is an incredible efficiency to being a working mother.”

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