10 Downing Street - Dods Monitoring

Mark Flanagan cuts through
tales of socks and cloud
bursting to reveal the real man
behind the Big Society
Apparently, Steve Hilton recently burst
into a No10 diary meeting, announced
“Everything we are doing today is
complete crap!” and then walked out again.
That sounds like Steve to me.
lover of detail, absurdly broad brush;
analytical yet irrational; sometimes rude but
often funny. Steve Hilton could be all these
things, often within the same hour.
i worked for Steve in the first six months
of the Coalition and, back then, he fizzed with
ideas – an unstoppable man on a mission to
Mr
blue
sky
change Britain for good.
in Whitehall, where the loosening of a tie
can be seen as a revolutionary act, Hilton’s
shaven-haired, shoe-less and casual appearance
caused many in the civil service to mark him
down as a problem to be contained.
and in policy-terms, Steve does think
long-term, transformational and in loud,
primary colours. in contrast, the best policy
officials tend to focus more on incremental
and deliverable change while the worst hide
behind the deadening language of ministerial
submissions.
Substance alarmed them as much as style.
Stories that he advocated cloud bursting
technology to give Britain more sunshine are
apocryphal. But his proposals to boost growth
april 2012 | THE HOUSE MaGaZiNE | 63
Steve hilton