THE MOLE
Who needs Steve Hilton when you have a 'run-the-UK' app
David Cameron will be able to summon up instant stats and polls on his iPad – but will it be enough?
COLUMN LAST UPDATED AT 09:20 ON MON 5 MAR 2012
IT SEEMS Tory MPs have nothing to worry about with the much-discussed departure of Steve Hilton,
the Prime Minister's blue skies thinker. David Cameron is getting a new specially designed app for his iPad to help him run the Government.
The app has been developed at a cost of £20,000 by Rohan Silver, another young aide at Number Ten,and is already being dubbed Dave's Dashboard.
It will be up and running by the end of the month, giving the PM instant access to economic statistics,opinion polling, government performance and trending issues on Twitter.
As for all that blue sky thinking that disappears along with Steve Hilton, it's time anyway that Dave and his ministers actually spent less time talking up radical reform and more time delivering it.
In short, the departure of Hilton to spend more time in California with his wife Rachel Whetstone,a former Tory spin doctor who landed a fat job with Google, will focus the Cabinet on the delivery of reforms on education, health and welfare rather than coming with more bright –
and not-so-bright-ideas.
According to Matthew d'Ancona, the Sunday Telegraph commentator who's tight with Number 10 and broke the news of the app, Cameron and his Lib Dem deputy Nick Clegg recently sent a letter round to their Cabinet colleagues, telling them to pull their fingers out.
Each Cabinet member will be meeting Francis Maude, the Minister for the Cabinet Office,
in face-to-face sessions about what they can do, practically and measurably, to speed up delivery.
Also, a new Implementation Unit at the Cabinet Office, headed by Will Cavendish, and overseen by Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, will attempt to beef up delivery.
The big fear in Downing Street is that, like Tony Blair, Cameron will be accused of wasting his
first term in office when the election comes.
ConservativeHome noted this morning that Cameron made a little noticed speech about the
lack of delivery at the weekend. It was also noticeable that Tory MP Margot James, sitting on
Andrew Marr's sofa yesterday, said implementation was now the key.
Cameron is desperate to prove that he will not be lost without Steve Hilton - that he is "his own man".
However, some Tories remain sceptical, particularly after weekend reports that Hilton decided to quit in frustration after a stand-up row with Cameron.
This concerned the PM's refusal to give Hilton his backing against the civil servants - resisting Hilton's view that euro red tape should be slashed or simply ignored.
Melanie Phillips reflects the doubts about Dave in a Daily Mail piece headlined 'With his closest
aide and Thatcherite ideas man gone,
I fear Dave will turn out to be little more than a suit.'
It will take more than an app to prove Cameron has substance.
Read more:
http://www.theweek.co.uk/politics/45690/who-needs-steve-hilton-when-you-have-run-uk-app#ixzz1oEsFjNJf
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