In what can only be described as the political equivalent of a man walking into a burning building armed with a water pistol and a pamphlet on fire safety, former Number 10 apparatchik Steve Hilton has announced his quixotic bid for the governorship of California. The man who once polished David Cameron's image to a blinding sheen now promises to bring a 'common sense revolution' to the Golden State, a place where the concept of common sense has been as absent as rain in July since the days of Ronald Reagan's ghost.
Hilton, a man whose CV includes 'architect of the Big Society' (a scheme so successful that it was eventually buried in a shallow grave and forgotten), will now attempt to convince Californians that they need a Brit with a penchant for radical simplification to sort out their homelessness crisis, wildfires, and chronic Napa Valley avocado shortages. His platform, I am told, involves replacing the state legislature with a series of pub quizzes and mandating that every policy must pass the 'would this get laughed out of a Wetherspoons at 11am?' test.
Let us examine this 'common sense' notion. In Hilton's world, common sense presumably means slashing regulations to ribbons, cutting taxes until the state coffers resemble a dried-up riverbed, and somehow convincing the tech billionaires of Silicon Valley that they should pay for things like 'roads' and 'schools' out of the goodness of their hearts. Because nothing says 'common sense' like moving to a country with free healthcare and then complaining about the NHS.
But wait, there is more. Hilton's campaign promises include a 'bonfire of the mandarins' (his words, not mine) which, in California, means firing a bunch of people who probably have better things to do than listen to a man who thinks that 'Brexit means Brexit' is a coherent political philosophy. He also plans to introduce 'citizen juries' where ordinary people can decide policy, which sounds suspiciously like the plot of a Black Mirror episode that ends with everyone being turned into paperclips.
The highlight of his campaign launch was a speech in which he compared California's bureaucracy to a 'giant, tangled ball of Christmas lights' and promised to 'cut the plug off and start again'. This metaphor, while colourful, fails to address the fact that the lights are actually keeping the intensive care units running and the wildfire warning systems operational. But who cares about nuance when you have a turn of phrase sharp enough to cut glass?
Of course, the real question is whether California's electorate will buy what Hilton is selling. They have seen snake oil salesmen before, from Arnold Schwarzenegger (remember him?) to the current governor Gavin Newsom, who is so smooth he could sell ice to an Eskimo and then convince them to build a sauna out of it. Hilton, by contrast, has all the charm of a damp biscuit and the oratorical style of a man who has just discovered that his gin and tonic contains no gin.
Perhaps the most worrying aspect of this announcement is that Hilton genuinely believes he can win. He has that look in his eye, the same look that every failed politician gets before they disappear into the lucrative world of consultancy and book deals. He will tour the state in a Tesla (obviously), holding town hall meetings where he will explain that the solution to California's problems is simply to 'do the opposite of whatever Gavin Newsom does'. It is a strategy so simplistic that it might just work in a country that elected a reality TV star to the highest office in the land.
In conclusion, Steve Hilton's 'common sense revolution' is about as sensible as wearing a monocle to a water fight. But in the theatre of the absurd that is modern politics, who am I to mock? At least he is not proposing to build a wall or ban Wi-Fi. Yet. I'm off to the Winchester for a large one. The revolution can wait.
