DAVID CAMERON, the young pretender to the Tory throne who came close yesterday to embracing Tony Blair in his conference speech, has already done so in private.

Mr Cameron, 38, who has put a modernising agenda at the centre of his campaign, clearly enjoys the comparisons that have been made between him and Labour’s most successful modern-day Prime Minister.

At a dinner with newspaper executives on the eve of his address, he took the comparison a step further. “I am the heir to Blair,” he said. If his hosts were in any doubt about what they had heard, Mr Cameron repeated the mantra. He also said that a Cameron Tory Government would not reverse all of the Blairite reforms in the public services.

His hosts were, to say the least, taken aback. Mr Cameron was guest, in the Louis Room at the Imperial Hotel in Blackpool, of The Daily Telegraph, house journal of the Conservative Party. The spirit of Margaret Thatcher, who was even praised by Kenneth Clark yesterday, still beats strongly in the editorial conferences of the newspaper.

Charles Moore, the former Editor who was at the dinner, is the official biographer of Baroness Thatcher, whose admirers include . . . Tony Blair. Mr Cameron, who was accompanied by his wife, Samantha, the creative director of a stationery company, was not isolated in the intimate gathering.

George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor and fellow member of the so-called Notting Hill set of young modernising Tories, was also at the dinner table. Mr Osborne, defending the heir to Blair boast, said: “We have nothing to be ashamed of in saying it.”

Martin Newland, the Editor of The Daily Telegraph, which has yet to declare for any of the five candidates, was not so sure. “David,” he said. “I would not repeat that outside this room.”

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