Fall Out: A Year of Political Mayhem. Tim Shipman
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Downing Street. The new prime minister was asked whether she wanted the gents’ loo outside her office converted for her use. It had previously been for the sole use of Cameron. May replied, ‘Absolutely not, I’m not wasting a penny of taxpayers’ money. I’ll go down the corridor like everybody else.’ The same humble approach ensured she went door-knocking in her constituency every weekend. Hill explained to friends, ‘She thinks if she underestimates Corbyn and Labour then it will come back to bite her in the bum. She doesn’t take her majority for granted.’ Another aide saw it as a chance of escape: ‘There is a point where she has had enough of being in Number 10. It’s a decompression thing, when she goes back and has that connectivity with people that she is comfortable with. When she doesn’t have that she gets ratty and you can see the pressure start to build on her.’
May preferred people with knowledge rather than rank. ‘She didn’t want senior bullshitters,’ a Downing Street aide said, ‘she wanted younger people who knew what they were talking about.’ A civil servant saw the same down-to-earth approach: ‘The custodial staff in Number 10 and the ones who take her tea or sandwiches, they were all happier when she arrived after Cameron because she would address them by name. They felt that she treated them like people who were helping her rather than lackeys.’
May’s social awkwardness and secrecy meant even close colleagues knew little about her. Some who worked closely with her were perplexed by the efforts of journalists and MPs to discover the ‘real’ Theresa May. One Tory who worked for her said, ‘I’m not sure there’s much there. She’s very sensible. There’s no interest in ideas. Philip is a very sweet man but it takes a certain type of character to marry someone who is so bland. Their conversation is completely banal.’
May appeared determined, even when she became prime minister, to deny there was any such thing as ‘Mayism’. ‘She’s quite anti-intellectual,’ a former minister said. ‘She’s not a great thinker. To admit of an “ism” would be to suggest there was a great Heseltinian long-term plan to be leader – which of course there was.’ The plan, though, was not May’s but that of Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill.
The fact that Theresa May seemed the only possible option for prime minister by 13 July 2016 was the work of her two closest aides, who were rewarded with the top staff jobs in Downing Street – for ever more known as ‘the chiefs’. Nick Timothy grew up in a working-class family in the Tile Cross district of Birmingham. His father left school at fourteen and worked his way up from the factory floor to become head of international sales at a local steel works. His mother did secretarial work at a school. Margaret Thatcher converted his parents to the Tory Party and Timothy was politicised by the 1992 general election because the Labour Party was threatening to close the grammar school – Edward VI Aston School – which had given him a chance in life. He went on to get a first-class degree in politics from Sheffield University and then landed a job in the Conservative research department, where his path first crossed with May’s.
May and Timothy quickly realised they were political soulmates. Over a period of fifteen years they fashioned an analysis of how the Conservative Party should reposition itself to broaden its appeal, with ‘a conservatism that is about the welfare and interests of the whole of the country across class divides and geographical divides’ and the belief that ‘there needs to be more of a role for the state’. Katie Perrior said, ‘For her it was always about putting the party back in touch with ordinary working people – the Conservatives should no longer be the party of the rich and the privileged.’4 A colleague of Timothy said, ‘He wanted to complete the process of Tory modernisation, but his brand of modernisation was always about class.’ Timothy was adamant that he was not ‘Theresa’s brain’, the title he had been awarded by journalists. ‘Suggesting I’m the creator of those ideas is absurd and insulting to her,’ he said. ‘I do think there’s more than a hint of sexism.’5 A cabinet minister close to May agreed: ‘The idea that she is this wax palette which can be inscribed by this curious pair is not correct. She has a very, very strong sense of public service and believes from a place deep within herself that injustice is wrong.’ Like May, Timothy was a man of contradictions. ‘He’s very traditional,’ a close friend said. ‘Even as a twenty-something he had a flat that looked like a man in his mid-forties. It’s all old-fashioned paintings and dark antique furniture.’ Yet this arch-Brexiteer’s two longest relationships had been with European women, a Belgian and a German.
In 2006, Timothy met Fiona Hill outside The Speaker pub in Westminster and the cerebral staff officer acquired an artillery commander. ‘I just immediately knew we were politically in the exact same place,’ she told friends. Hill had a blunter approach, once declaring, ‘We fucking hate socialism and we want to crush it in a generation.’ Hill also came from a poor background, growing up in Greenock outside Glasgow. She forced her way into a job on the Scotsman newspaper, writing football reports and features, developing the news sense and sharp elbows that would take her to Sky News, where she worked on the newsdesk and met her husband, Tim Cunningham, whose name she was to take until they divorced. When she joined the Conservative Party press office in 2006 Timothy introduced her to May. ‘They know each other inside out,’ said one who has worked closely with both. ‘Sometimes Fi can say something and Nick will say, “That was literally in my head.” They both like working hard. It sounds too pious to say they believe in fairness, but they do – and that is what they share with Theresa.’
Hill and Timothy were equals but Hill’s media background meant she was seen by the outside world as primarily a communications professional. As someone who had helped May develop legislation on modern slavery and domestic violence it grated. ‘She’s very sensitive about the idea that Nick is the policy brain and she’s just a comms person,’ a colleague said. Hill was also resentful of claims that she was May’s personal stylist, even though she did advise her on clothes. On one foreign trip Hill erupted with rage when the events team passed her May’s handbag. It made her late for a meeting with Vladimir Putin. ‘They never give Nick the handbag,’ she complained to Katie Perrior. ‘What am I? The fucking handbag carrier?’ When Perrior said she would take the handbag instead, Hill attacked: ‘This is why you don’t have any gravitas – because you’re willing to take the handbag.’ In pointing out the different treatment of Timothy and the senior women, Hill had a point.
Colleagues say Hill’s most important attribute – in matters of both policy and appearance – was to act as May’s cheering section, boosting her morale. ‘Fi operates as the emotional support: “You’re fine, you look great, you don’t need to care about this”,’ a colleague said. At one meeting in Downing Street May had been put off by something. ‘Fi leant across and put her hand on her arm and said, “Don’t worry, we said there would be days like this,”’ a witness said. ‘I thought that was a tragic sight, but it also illustrated how connected she is to both of them. They are literally the people who reach out and put an arm around her and tell her it is going to be all right.’ A senior Home Office official agreed: ‘Theresa was unable to take big decisions without the clear steer and guidance of Fiona.’
The relationship between Timothy and Hill was compared by colleagues to that between brother and sister or even lovers, which they had never been – often fractious but with a united front presented to the world. ‘They never let a cigarette paper come between them in public,’ a colleague said. Another observed, ‘They’re like siblings, they fight a lot. They don’t care what they say about each other. But there’s a loyalty there. It doesn’t matter what they’ve done, it doesn’t matter how bad the other person’s behaved, they’ll always cover the other’s arse.’
Timothy and Hill had a devotion to May which surpassed the usual relationship between politician and staff. A former minister who discussed May with Timothy recalled, ‘I was talking about her appeal, I said, “I know this sounds almost religious which it’s not,” and he said something like, “Yes, it is religious.”’ Timothy was joking but his zeal left an impression on the MP: ‘That was a glimpse of how strongly her supporters had come to see her as the messiah.’
Together, ‘the twins’ set themselves up as May’s