The Prime Minister’s strategy chief is heading to California to teach for a one year sabbatical, we learn. But who takes a one-year sabbatical in the middle of what’s supposed to be a five-year fight to save Britain? He did this before in Opposition, and came back. But this time, I doubt he’ll be back. He’s joining Stanford University as a visiting scholar, presumably to spend more time with his wife Rachel Whetstone who is communications chief for Google. Hilton’s friends say that, in his head, he never quite came back from California — his aversion to shoes (and sometimes manners) has led to much mockery. But overall, he is — and has been — a force for good in No.10. David Cameron’s government will be more timid without him.
Since Hilton arrived at No.10, his influence over Cameron has waned. This is a shame, because Hilton’s instincts are sound. The more he has seen of the government machine, the deeper his despair: it’s no Rolls Royce. You jump in the seat, put your foot on the accelerator — and nothing happens.
Take Hilton’s policy to actually reward people for recycling, rather than penalise them for putting the wrong rubbish the wrong bin. It was stooped by objections from Caroline Spelman’s Environment Department, who said this defied EU Law. It didn’t. Hilton had to send it back and fight for days over what should have been a tiny move. He began to conclude that political power in Britain is a chimera.
Cameron has meanwhile been becoming more reliant on Sir Jeremy Heywood, the rather Machiavellian Cabinet Secretary whose greatest skill seems to be the climbing of greasy poles. It also would not surprise me if the debacle over NHS reform has diminished No.10’s appetite to do anything else radical, deepening Hilton’s despair. Hilton estimates that a quarter of the work No.10 has to do is a result of orders from the European Union, which is what has led him to favour withdrawal. But as he knows, his boss has no appetite for confrontation with Brussels.
Hilton has a four-year-old son, whom he dotes on. He married Whetstone in California, in a surprise ceremony bolted on to the end of his son’s baptism. He is famously uxorious. So I suspect his thought process would have been something like this:
Option 1: Hang around No.10 making the case for reform, wearing T-Shirts that say ‘Pillage before Plunder’ in case the civil service don’t get the message. But you still find yourself thwarted by them, by EU regulations, by Lib Dems and (worst of all) the PM’s disinterest.
Option 2: Go surfing USA, have family-friendly beach barbecues with Silicon Valley’s most brilliant minds. Part company, on very amicable terms, with the Prime Minister who leaves the door open to your return by calling it a one-year sabbatical.
The brilliant Twitter parody, SteveHiltonGuru, has been hinting for some time that Hilton’s mind was wandering back to the beach. ‘The sun is shining in Palo Alto’ it would say. The real Steve Hilton seems to have drawn precisely the same conclusion.
P.S. Matt d’Ancona, who knows No10 as well as anyone, tweets that obituaries are premature and that ‘Hilton will return’. He has a point: when Hilton decided to advise the Tories from California last time, no one thought he’d be back — and he was. His relationship with Cameron is quite unique: they are best friends, they formed their political opinions together and will always stay in touch. As Michael Gove once told me, ‘it is sometimes impossible to know where Steve ends and David begins because when they talk they bat ideas backwards and forwards, it is a great thing to see’. But I suspect Hilton is more likely to return to a pre-election role in the Tory party. And there’s no denying that his surprise departure (which those closest to him were not expecting) will leave a very awkward question: if you genuinely believed your best friend was about to change Britain permanently and for the better, would you take a year off now?
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