Cameron dines out with young Tories

With new opinion polls pointing towards a Conservative majority after the next election, the jostling for David Cameron’s affections has begun. Thirty young Tory MPs have been invited to join a dining club called the Green Chip group – and with Cameron set to join them during the coming months, the rest of the party can only envy the access they’re getting.

The club’s typical member is an MP who campaigned for an unwinnable seat during the Tories’ limp 2001 campaign and then got into Parliament four years later. Like Adam Afriyie (pictured), the half-Ghanaian MP for Windsor who set up a successful IT firm, or accountant Justine Greening, many of the cabal had a career before politics. These are the Tories who supported Cameron from the outset of the leadership campaign – not a bunch of dissident backbenchers.

The guest list was selected and chased down by shadow environment minister Greg Barker, who accompanied Cameron on a trip to see the melting Arctic ice cap in 2006. Michael Gove, who was tipped as a future leader of the party by Michael Portillo, also helped get the group together. Gove has earned plaudits - and Cameron’s trust - for his proposals to use Sweden as a model for reforming Britain’s education system.

Cameron’s Notting Hill set is represented by shadow chancellor and cycling buddy George Osborne, and shadow culture minister Ed Vaizey. London mayoral candidate Boris Johnson also made the cut. But there was no room for either David Davis or William Hague, and this 'party within a party' has been greeted with a fair degree of distrust by more traditional elements of the Conservatives. As one Tory supporter complained, the group’s influence could prove divisive.