Politics | 1 July 2009

The sun-capturing atrium of Portcullis House is no substitute for the Californian coast but it may at least help Steve Hilton acclimatise. He is now back from his year-long absence — though he is still dressed as if he is heading for the beach. It is a reminder of the inverted sartorial hierarchy of the Conservatives. The lowly MPs wear suits and ties. The party’s senior officers are resplendent in open necks. And anyone dressing as scruffily as Mr Hilton signals the status of three-star general.

There are precious few more reliable methods of working out who’s who in the Tory high command. David Cameron works with a semi-formalised network of relationships in which people’s official job titles give little idea of their true power. Major decisions can be taken at weekends and in the evenings, on an ad-hoc basis. Mr Hilton’s 3 a.m. emails from California were more than capable of sending the machine into nocturnal action. Shadow cabinet meetings are for briefing the troops, not the taking of decisions. It is a peculiar operation. But it works.

The Tory machine is powered by the personal chemistry within the team which masterminded Mr Cameron’s leadership campaign — mainly Mr Hilton and George Osborne, with a few others pitching in. This team has been transposed into the Tory hierarchy with only a few modifications. Andy Coulson, the communications chief, has been admitted to the inner sanctum and Andrew Feldman, an old friend of Mr Cameron, is chief executive of the party. The operation is run in a corner of Norman Shaw South, a building on the periphery of the parliamentary complex.

To visit Norman Shaw South is to see a political machine whirring beautifully. It is like a British version of The West Wing: the key players walking in and out of their rooms and having 45-second impromptu meetings in the corridor.