the first post profile
Blair had his kingmaker and so does Cameron. Two by-elections today will show how he’s doing |
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Steve Hilton likes to deflect comparisons between his role and that of the key architect of New Labour, Peter Mandelson. Yet they were inevitable from the moment the 36-year-old marketing man joined David Cameron's campaign team. Suddenly the slightly stiff, plump, archetypal Tory public schoolboy became voter-friendly.
Hilton has been responsible for all Cameron's touchy-feely initiatives, from polo shirts to huskies to bicycles to last Friday's appearance on Jonathan Ross, where the Tory party leader (tieless, of course) had to fend off such questions as whether he'd ever fantasised about Margaret Thatcher.
The jury's still out on whether the Ross show was a good idea (enabling Cameron to 'connect' with politically disinterested 30-
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| Hilton has been responsible for all Cameron's touchy-feely initiatives, from polo shirts to huskies |
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year-olds) or a fiasco (Ross was bound to embarrass him). One former Tory Cabinet Minister muttered yesterday that the spectacle had made him "cringe", but then added that he supposed it was the sort of thing they had to do nowadays.
Tory traditionalists may pooh-pooh such stunts, but they are all part of the "Cameron aroma" project devised by "Dave's" chief political strategist. Just as Mandelson influenced every facet of Blair's early steps, Hilton now advises Cameron on what to say, what to wear and his body language.
His strategy is to change all those nasty perceptions about the Conservative product. Typical is his plan to replace the party's Thatcherite torch logo with something more appropriate to Cameron's Conservatism (cue comparisons with New Labour's red rose).
Then there's the Cameron "grid", showing the complex drip-drip of speeches, events and announcements over the summer, culminating in a new-look party conference in October. As one insider said: "Steve seems to be trying to do to the party what Princess Di did for the  |
