The increasingly bloody feud between Theresa May’s political operation and David Cameron’s has claimed another victim. Nick Timothy, May’s long-serving special adviser, has been spectacularly kicked off the candidates’ list.
The precise reason for Timothy’s ejection from the list is in dispute – Paul Goodman has Timothy’s version of events on Conservative Home. But Timothy is not the first of May’s special advisers to run into trouble, Fiona Cunningham was forced to resign by Number 10 after— in a flagrant breach of the rules —Cabinet correspondence was published on the Home Office’s website.
Timothy, though, is not leaving the candidates list without a fight. He has written an explosive letter alleging that he was kicked off for refusing to break the special advisers’ code of conduct during the Rochester and Strood by-election. Although, I suspect that this Spectator Life piece on the Home Secretary and her ambitions, in which Timothy is — highly unusually for a special adviser — quoted by name, had quite a lot to do with his ejection.
What this row reveals, though, is just how bad relations now are between Theresa May’s political operation and David Cameron’s. Inside Number 10, they make little effort to hide their irritation at the increasingly sharp elbows of May’s camp followers. One wonders how the two camps will be able to work together in an election campaign in which May is scheduled to play a crucial role as the Tories’ leading female voice.
Update: CCHQ point out that Timothy is not the only person to have been kicked off the candidates’ list post the Rochester by-election
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