Steve hilton

Margaret Thatcher’s death has inevitably prompted intense reflection among Tories about what lessons the party should learn from her time in office. ‘We must finish the job’ is the refrain on the lips of Thatcherite ministers, and there are more of those today than there were a year ago. The experience of office has had a radicalising effect on the Cameroons. To be sure, today’s circumstances are not the same as those of 1979 or ’89. Her exact policy prescription is not what is required. This is something that Thatcher, a politician who relished fresh thinking, would have appreciated. But what the party does need is the spirit of Thatcherism, that understanding of what a centre-right party should be in the modern age.

The Tories’ shadowy donor-cum-puppetmaster has been given the cold shoulder, yet again. Taking full proprietor privileges at ConservativeHome, he’s taken aim at young Dave’s departed brain, Steve Hilton. It seems that the guru has left the Lord of Belize off his Republican National Convention party guest list: ‘Apparently, the event to be seen at is to be hosted by none other than Steve Hilton. Unreliable rumour has it that he has taken for the occasion an enormous house on Tampa Bay's prestigious Harbour Island. What can he be up to? Clearly he is keeping his hand in. Unfortunately my invitation has not arrived so I can report no further for the time being.

Are Francis Maude's £5.5bn savings in central government spending a significant step forward in his battle to shrink the public sector? In today's Telegraph, the Cabinet Office minister explains the beneficiaries and sources of the latest cutbacks: Today I can announce that in 2011-12 we saved £5.5 billion. This is the equivalent of around £500 for each working household in Britain or enough money to fund 1.6 million primary school places. How did we make these savings? Within the first days of this Government we introduced tough temporary spending controls. These limited expenditure on IT contracts, property, marketing, temporary staff and consultancy. While civil service spending has steadily decreased — £3.

I suspect that ‘Weekend secrets of the “chillaxing” Prime Minister’ (£) is one of the last headlines that Number 10 wanted to see this Saturday. It is acutely sensitive about the idea that Cameron doesn’t work hard enough, a charge that it thinks is as unfair as it is damaging. But perhaps more interesting than the details of the Prime Minister’s Sunday routine — a ‘crap film’ and a few glasses of wine at lunch — is what Francis Elliott and James Hanning reveal about the Cameron-Hilton relationship.

The argument in the Cameron circle about what the government needs to do to get back on course has been the story of this week. As I say in the political column, there’s a divide between those who think that this month’s events have been little more than a bit of mid-term blues, and those who worry that they have revealed serious, structural problems that needs addressing if they are not to cripple the government. At a meeting of Conservative Cabinet ministers on Wednesday lunchtime, this divide came clearly into sight.

The departure of his senior aide Richard Reeves is a major blow to Nick Clegg. Reeves, a relative newcomer to the Lib Dems, was far less focused on party structures than many of those in Clegg’s circle and instead concentrated on the party’s long term electoral prospects. Reeves’s view was that there was a space in British politics for a party that was classically liberal on economics and socially liberal on other matters. He wanted to turn the Lib Dems into a party that was as comfortable in government as in opposition. There will be those who want to read something political into Reeves’s departure.

It is a sign of the influence that Steve Hilton has on the Cameron project that there have been more column inches devoted to his departure from Downing Street than there would be to most Cabinet resignations. But even after he heads to California in May, Hilton will still be part of the Cameron brains trust. He is already scheduled to work on the Prime Minister’s conference speech. Hilton has, I understand, been mulling the idea of taking a sabbatical since last summer. His decision to go ahead and take next year off seems to have been motivated by a variety of factors. But those closest to him stress that family reasons genuinely were key. This is not to say that Hilton is not frustrated.

Perhaps, the greatest testament to Steve Hilton’s influence in Downing Street is that everyone chuckles when you ask if anyone will replace him. His role in Number 10 as the senior adviser was one he had carved out for himself so that he could work on what he wanted to. It is deliberately designed not to fit on any ‘org chart’, the kind of document that the post-bureaucratic Hilton has little patience for. Hilton was for years caricatured as being not really right-wing. But, in reality, the opposite is true — he was, in some ways, the most right-wing man in Downing Street. Few matched him on subjects like 50p tax and labour market regulation. The Lib Dems were right when they called him ‘Thatcher in a t-shirt’.

Political cultures differ. In Iran, for example, hyperbole is expected in all political conversations. So slogans always call for ‘Death to the US’, and nothing less. In Britain, of course, the use of language is more even-tempered, but other rules apply. Blaming the civil service for failure is considered OK, but charging an individual official, even a Permanent Secretary, for the same is considered off-limits. If a minister were to try it, then he'd be accused of trying to pass the buck on towards defenceless officials. But, as Camilla Cavendish points out in today's Times (£), failure is often also the fault of senior officials who, despite problems in the past, move seamlessly from job to job and from Department to Department.

Political debate is going to be dominated by the economy between now and the autumn statement. Ed Miliband is trying to use this moment to persuade the public that the Coalition's economic policies have failed. By contrast, the Tories want to highlight how much deeper trouble the country would be in if it did not have the confidence of the bond markets. The Tories hope that this 'stay close to nurse for fear of something worse' approach will eventually deliver an election victory for them in 2015, given how hard Labour is finding it to regain credibility on the economy. As Ben Brogan wrote the other day, this strategy worked for them in 1992 — the campaign on which both Cameron and Hilton cut their political teeth.

David Cameron summoned all Tory special advisers to Downing Street for a meeting this afternoon. He wanted, I understand, to warn them that too much of the coalition's internal workings were being briefed out to journalists. He made it clear that he wants an end to process stories appearing in the papers.   Downing Street has been infuriated by recent reports of tensions between Steve Hilton, Cameron’s senior adviser, and George Osborne and is keen to stamp on anything that keeps this — rather misleading — story going. There are also worries about the party being seen as divided again, a return to the old Tory wars stories of the 1990s.    Interestingly, Cameron said that he did not think that many leaks came from officials.