{"id":53265,"date":"2026-06-01T03:13:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T03:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/53265\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T03:13:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T03:13:13","slug":"steve-hilton-smashed-up-uk-politics-now-he-wants-to-upend-californias-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/53265\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Hilton smashed up UK politics \u2014 now he wants to upend California\u2019s \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hilton now finds himself in with a real shot at entering the final runoff, despite never previously having held elected office on either side of the pond \u2014 and a political past which appears at odds with his embrace of MAGA Republicanism.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s unlikely to prevail in November, given the Golden State\u2019s Democratic ties and deep animosity towards Donald Trump \u2014 who has personally endorsed the British-American challenger. But advancing to the November election would, at a minimum, give Hilton a platform. And\u00a0if there is one thing he is known for back in the U.K., it\u2019s disrupting the status quo.<\/p>\n<p>He is a character who rarely wears a collared shirt, never a tie, and doesn\u2019t own a smartphone, instead relying on a flip-phone for texts and calls only \u2014 and was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cbLm--0Iudo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">immortalized<\/a> as the unbearably pretentious spin doctor Stewart Pearson in \u201cThe Thick of It,\u201d purveyor of such pearls of wisdom as: \u201cI like the plasmic nature of your data modeling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Among his compatriots from the Cameron years, he\u2019s widely viewed as an upstart with a talent for gaining attention, though many of those who came into contact with him in Westminster claim that his campaigning zeal is not matched by an ability to govern and often implodes on impact with reality.<\/p>\n<p>Yet Michael Gove, a former senior Cabinet minister who worked with Hilton for many years, insisted that his old ally should not be underestimated. \u201cI\u2019m absolutely convinced that it wouldn\u2019t be where he is if he weren\u2019t deadly serious about bringing change,\u201d he told POLITICO. Hilton did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Hoodies and huskies<\/p>\n<p>Hilton is almost universally credited for turning around Cameron\u2019s image from a typical Tory toff, who was not even the favorite for party leader, into a much more modern, even relatable, kind of politician who won back power for the Conservatives after 13 years in the wilderness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hilton now finds himself in with a real shot at entering the final runoff, despite never previously having&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[26183,2097,2098,3191,26254,361,28,1360,401,11672,669,604,1369,593,15690,5,6,461,2322],"class_list":["post-53265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-bill-clinton","tag-companies","tag-data","tag-david-cameron","tag-doctors","tag-donald-trump","tag-education","tag-elections","tag-history","tag-michael-gove","tag-platforms","tag-regulation","tag-rights","tag-services","tag-steve-bannon","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-youth"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116672672676409987","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}