Steve Hilton's Californication: Meet the British Politician and Ex-Environmentalist Who Thinks He Should Run California

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Politics


A weekend ride-along with the David Cameron-adjacent, FOX-featured, Trump-endorsed, Republican candidate for governor.

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Steve HiltonPhotographer Adali Schell

Steve Hilton blazed through British political life so fast he had burned out of it by the spring of 2012. He was only 42, but he had already become a source of national mockery on The Thick of It, Veep’s British predecessor. The show’s writers, and much of the British press, had turned caustic by the end of his tenure as chief strategist to Britain’s conservative prime minister, David Cameron. They treated Hilton as a comic figure, effective only at burnishing his own reputation for “blue sky thinking” while padding around 10 Downing Street, the home of the British government, in socks and a T-shirt. He inspired a character on the show who was duly fired six months after Hilton left number 10. “The PM [prime minister],” his character was told, “whilst acknowledging the need for thoughts, is keener on actions these days.”

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