We can't give back the Ashes – we've lost them

Just as the Tories can't work out why they seem irrelevant, nor can the English cricket establishment

You can understand the Australians being annoyed at not being allowed to have the Ashes, despite winning them off us for the eighth time in a row. Various reasons are put forward for why the prize should stay at Lord's cricket ground, from tradition to Tim Rice's excuse that they're "too fragile." I'm beginning to suspect we've lost them. Most likely is that, as the Queen goes there every year for the Test match, she's walked past them, thought "that little urn should fetch a few bob" and flogged it off.

It shows how low the status of English cricket has fallen that the only strop we can throw after humiliating defeat is to keep the prize. A few years ago, at least we went to the trouble of making up ridiculous excuses. When we lost ten matches in a row to the West Indies, we said they were cheating by bowling too many bouncers, so the rules were changed and they could only bowl one per over.

Then we went to India, where all their main bowlers were spinners, and we lost every single match. After that we probably tried to change the rules so you could only SPIN the ball once an over. Then we lost to Sri Lanka and New Zealand, and probably demanded they only be allowed to bowl the ball once an over, and push the other five down the wicket on a tea-trolley.

But this time the gap was so great even the Australians are embarrassed. In the next series they'll feel sorry for us and play the way a dad does with his young son. When one of our batsmen is bowled out, their bowler will say "stay there, let's try again".

Countless theories have been put forward to explain this predicament, but English cricket is in long-term decline, because fewer people than ever see the game as having any relevance. In the 1960s Lord Monckton said: "I have been a member of a Conservative cabinet and of the MCC, and compared to the MCC, the Conservatives are a bunch of Communists." Since then it's got worse. English cricket has been run by members of the Freedom Association, a Lieutenant-Colonel who once proudly told me his qualifications for running the MCC were "none whatsoever" and a committee that refused women members until forced by the European Court of Human Rights.

Just as the Conservative Party can't work out why they seem irrelevant to anyone under 30, nor can the English cricket establishment. Conversely, in the Caribbean and South Asia, cricket earned an anti- establishment image, because of its close links with the anti-colonial movement. A similar process happened in Australia. To begin with, Australian cricket reflected the nation's deference towards the mother country. When the first team set off for England they declared their intention to "prove the colonials are worthy descendants of the good old stock from which they have come." One player replied to a spectator's insult: "I can tell you sir, that I am as much an Englishman as you or any gentleman present." Which is probably not what Shane Warne shouts back when people call out: "Warney you fat Aussie bastard."

But then came the First World War, in which the British tried to conscript Australians. And then the Depression, during which the British government declared that starving Australians had only themselves to blame for living "too luxuriously". Over this period the resentment towards Poms that we're familiar with was born, especially when we declared an election for governor of New South Wales as null and void because the winner was "too anti-English".

England's colonialism was especially rampant within the realm of cricket. The English team sent there in 1924 was captained by Arthur Gilligan, an active member of the British Union of Fascists. And in 1932 the captain was Douglas Jardine, an Oxford graduate who wore a cravat while fielding, who'd been advised the tour was expected to "make Australia more appreciative of the Imperial tie." Jardine made it clear his brief was to impress upon the colony that no lengths would be spared to put them back in their natural place, and the result was the infamous "Bodyline" tactics that caused riots and a breakdown in diplomatic relations.

Ever since, cricket has had an opposite image in the two countries. Here, it embodies the most archaic wing of the establishment: there it's expected the whole population will embrace the game.

Last year I took part in a radio show in which the other guests were Shane Warne, and a lad from the first comprehensive school ever to reach the finals of the national schoolboy cup, where they would play a team from Eton. Shane Warne looked as committed as he does when he's bowling and said: "Look. It's really really important you win mate." That's why they beat us this time and will beat us next time and the time after that.