WORD of the meteoric rise of David Cameron has reached the highest echelons of New York society. In a sign that he may have been recognised as potentially a “new” Tony Blair and the next prime minister, the Tory leader is to be feted in the Big Apple.

In an interview with The Sunday Times today, Cameron says that he has been invited to a welcome dinner by Tina Brown, former editor of The New Yorker and Vanity Fair magazines.

It was Brown and her husband Sir Harold Evans, the former Sunday Times editor, who feted Blair during the mid-1990s, helping to introduce the Labour leader to Manhattan society and potential supporters on the expatriate circuit.

Cameron also says that another figure associated with new Labour has been in touch — Russell Chambers, the City banker who has holidayed with the Blairs in Barbados.

“We have been marking off the non-electoral milestones on the march to power,” Cameron says. “Boris Johnson [education spokesman] turning up on time, or that banker Russell Chambers that Tony Blair hangs around with asking me to lunch.

“But I have defined the moment as Tina Brown telling George Osborne [shadow chancellor] she would like to organise a dinner for me in New York.”

Cameron also hints that he is considering reforms to how children are taught in comprehensives. A Tory government might favour teaching children in groups of the same ability across different age groups — rather than the traditional grouping by age.

One of the few state schools which already does this — Bridgemary community school in Gosport, Hampshire — was visited by Cameron a year ago when he was shadow education secretary. Pupils up to two years apart are taught in the same class. According to the head teacher, the system has improved exam results.

Cameron says: “If you are good at maths you go to the top set with children of a different age group. I met 15-year-olds who were doing AS-levels.”

Cameron indicates that he supports limited state funding for political parties and a £50,000 cap on individual donations. In a move which is likely to bring him into conflict with Labour, he insists that this cap should cover union donations as well.

Cameron also says that he intends to set up a commission to investigate corruption in British football, following the recent Italian football bribery scandal.

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