Cameron jokes that hiding bald spot is his ‘number one priority’

Mr Cameron was speaking at the annual Westminster Correspondents dinner before an audiences of journalists. The event – revived for the first time since 1974 – was an opportunity for Mr Cameron to show off his sense of humour.

Looking out at the crowd of reporters dressed up in black tie in the grand surroundings of the House of Commons Members’ dining room, the PM quipped: “The last time I was at a dinner this posh, Boris (Johnson) spent the rest of the night in prison.”

Tongue firmly in cheek, the PM recounted a day spent canvassing with the London mayor, when a woman answered their knock on the door with the words: “Boris, you’re the father of one of my children.”

A moment’s horrified flustering by Johnson was ended as she added: “It’s your daughter, I’m her maths teacher.”

The assembled Press, eager to hear Mr Cameron’s plans for 2014, pricked up their ears as he said he was ready to announce “my priorities for the year ahead”.

“Number one,” he said. “Keeping the bald spot under control.”

He insisted he had not known in advance his hairdresser was getting an MBE in the New Year Honours but added: “If you can make cuts and stop recession at the same time, you deserve an honour.”

His other two priorities, he said, were keeping the coalition on the road while Nick Clegg, “the product of the mean streets of Westminster and Cambridge”, tried to differentiate himself from the public-school Tories, and keeping Lib Dem Home Office Minister Norman Baker off the television.