Is Cameron readying his lifeboat like Blair?

Why will David Cameron be  in Washington  on Wednesday ‘having talks about Syria’ while as many as 100 of his own MPs plan to vote against him in the Commons?

Because the U.S. trip was pre-arranged, of course. But it’s fortuitous, too. Being out of the country means he’ll suffer less personal embarrassment from his party’s revolt.

The amendment in question — framed by angry backbench Tories — regrets that a referendum on the EU wasn’t announced in the Queen’s Speech last week.

Cameron's absence this week carries a risk that one of his ministers might jump ship and join those voting against him

Labour and the Lib Dems will vote against the amendment. They don’t want a referendum. They fear the public would take advantage of the opportunity to vote against remaining in the EU.

If the polls had suggested voters were warming to the EU — instead of making it clear we’re massively opposed — Labour and the Lib Dems would be urging a referendum to settle the matter once and for all.

Tony Blair became attracted to big-picture international politics and his star rose abroad as it fell at home

By the same token, Eurosceptics would not be demanding a referendum if they thought they’d lose it. They’d be playing a longer game, softening up public opinion by publicising the iniquities of the EU. Such is politics.

Cameron’s promise of a referendum after the 2015 election, mandating the Government to re-negotiate our membership of the EU, should have quietened his herd of Eurosceptics.

But who says Dave will be in power after 2015, they cry? And, in any case, wouldn’t he renege on his promise? Also, he cannot tie the hands of his successor in No 10 in advance.

Cameron’s absence this week carries a risk that one of his ministers might jump ship and join those voting against him. Even a rebelling junior minister might create a domino collapse of his leadership.

Should he have cancelled his foreign jaunt, remaining at home to urge his backbenchers to support him? Or did he feel he’d gone as far as he could in that direction by ordering ministers to abstain in the vote?

Settling for ministerial abstentions was making a virtue of necessity. He knew he couldn’t force his colleagues to vote against the rebel amendment. Too many of them are Eurosceptics.

Indeed, he argues that he wants Tory MPs to vote for the amendment as a means of underlining his party’s determination to have one.

Yesterday, Education Secretary Michael Gove perkily announced ‘I’m abstaining’ before articulating a fragile, ‘straw man’ case on the Prime Minister’s behalf. Lugubrious-looking Gove always sounds like a mickey–taking comedian, pretending to be affronted that you’re not believing his wilder flights of fancy.

Being out of the country on Wednesday means Cameron will suffer less personal embarrassment from his party's revolt

He and Cameron must know that former Tory Chancellor Lord Lawson is right — that we’re unlikely to get much from the EU in any negotiations about returning powers.

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So why expose himself to the fury of Eurosceptics in his party, terrified about losing their seats to UKIP, either directly or indirectly? Especially since opinion polls are on the anti-EU side.

I believe the answer is that Cameron is now attracted to big-picture international politics, like his idol Tony Blair.

Tony’s star rose abroad as it fell at home. Reviled by Left and Right at home, he announced on the day he resigned as PM that he’d become official envoy of the four-nation UN body seeking peace in the Middle East. Although this team has achieved nothing, it provides Blair, who has myriad international business interests, with a highly respectable front.

For his part, Cameron realises there may come a time when the enemies he’s attracted in his party will outweigh those who are loyal. But giving them what they want now — an EU referendum and an end to the Coalition — would not guarantee his survival. He’d be seen as a weakling bullied into submission.

Better, perhaps, to keep doing what he thinks is right, sticking to the Coalition agreement, hoping the economy will improve and with it the political weather; and if he wins the election in 2015, pressing the EU in the direction of what the British people were sold in the first place — namely a Common Market

If not, there’s always a future career which exploits his political experience and contacts.

While in America, the PM — as chairman of a UN committee discussing international development — will have talks about how much money the developed world will tithe to the developing one after the existing agreement runs out in 2015.

After being appointed to the UN committee, Cameron resisted calls to reduce the 0.77 per cent of GDP that Britain spends on foreign aid. Putting his international obligations ahead of his domestic ones, some might say.

Sticking to his guns on foreign  aid during a recession has angered many of his MPs, but not half as much as his failure to promise a  referendum on the EU.

According to a news report yesterday — admittedly in a Labour-supporting newspaper — ‘up to 70 Tory MPs’ are prepared to sign a letter of no confidence in his leadership.

Model of the moment Cara Delevingne has apparently been given career advice by Kate Moss

David Cameron is a cool customer. He knows he’s just one tempest away from a shipwreck. A perfect time to fettle the prime ministerial lifeboat.

Top model Cara Delevingne, is said to have been advised ‘never complain, never explain’ by fellow clothes horse Kate Moss after she was accused of carrying cocaine.

Some say this phrase was first uttered by wily Victorian prime minister Benjamin Disraeli. Others attribute it to classical scholar and 19th-century Oxford college master Benjamin Jowett, who said: ‘Never regret, never explain, never apologise.’

Isn’t it amusing to think of their lofty riposte being deployed by attractive young women accused of sticking narcotics up their noses?

Courtly tricks of the trade

Disgraced former Cabinet minister Chris Huhne is due out of prison this week, having served his time for perverting the course of justice.

I wonder why such a crime — lying to save your skin — is considered more heinous than the original offence (in the former Lib  Dem MP’s case it was attempting to pass speeding points on to his then wife, Vicky Pryce).

Perhaps the answer is because it’s showing disrespect for HM’s legal process, without which we’d all be doomed. Yet lawyers, employing a repertoire of legal trickery, often win acquittals for the guilty while some innocent people are wrongly convicted.

But that’s our adversarial court system and — if it will please your lordship — is not to be confused  with perverting the course of justice.

Former Cabinet minister Chris Huhne is due out of prison this week, having served his time for perverting the course of justice

Deputy Commons Speaker Nigel Evans, accused of raping a male friend, was reported to the police by a fellow Tory MP who accompanied the alleged victim to the police station. But the Mail on Sunday, which broke the story, yesterday quoted the MP informant, whose name they withheld, as saying: ‘It is important for legal reasons that I make absolutely no comment.’

We don’t need him to make a comment, but it would be nice to know who he is. This is Britain, not  North Korea. Secret justice is no justice.

The death of film director Bryan Forbes is marked with fond obituaries, including a fine tribute written for the Mail by his daughter, Emma.

Elsewhere, only one negative note intruded — the fact that he had not been offered a knighthood but a lesser CBE.

Film director Bryan Forbes, who died in May 2013, aged 86 after a long illness, was honoured with a CBE

My colleague Simon Heffer suggests it was due to Forbes being a Tory who supported Margaret Thatcher. Labour luvvies, it seems, are more highly prized.

The honours system is a mystery to most of us. We know some are lobbied for and others the result of political donations. But is there any reason why it shouldn’t be a little more transparent?

Surely it would be less suspect if we knew who was being considered, and why, for national honours.

Kelly Fox says she had to stand firm against male beastliness when working the clubs as a stand-up comic in the Eighties

Britain’s got a talent for sleazy menBritain’s Got Talent contestant Kelly Fox, a grandmother-of-seven, says she had to stand firm against male beastliness when working the clubs as a stand-up comic in the Eighties.

‘There would always be cheeky men barging into my room while I was getting changed,’ confides Kelly. ‘It was a bit sleazy, but my husband would protect me from them and shield me.’

Meanwhile, we’re told that fresh complaints about sexual abuse have been made against two singers, two TV personalities and a comedian. Who can they be?

Buying my newspapers yesterday, the lady behind the counter — unprompted — named a household name/comedian/entertainer, adding: ‘He’s next, I’d say.’

She didn’t have any evidence,  just a hunch.

I know little of Doncaster, other than having once failed to get off a train there to change for Bradford.

Ensconced in the bar with several convivial Caledonians — my jacket and suitcase back in my carriage — I had to wait until I reached York, where it was snowing, before I got off. And then find a way back — jacket-less — to Bradford.

I bear no ill-will for the place. But I was interested in a correspondence in The Times in which it was suggested that the town’s denizens were petty, narrow-minded and provincial.

Major Spencer Jackson, wrote to say: ‘I recall with fondness the air rifle-armed sniper who inhabited one of the tower blocks, and the time I was  held at knifepoint in the pub of a local pit village because  I’d apparently looked at someone’s bird.’

Generously, he concludes: ‘Every Doncastrian is a lottery winner in comparison with the residents of my location.’

Which happens to be Kabul.