Meet the bickering pair of Theresa May’s closest aides Tories are blaming for the worst campaign in modern political history
Theresa May's team were convinced they were heading for a landslide victory but instead presided over a truly shambolic campaign
TORY HQ’s war room was all set for Queen Theresa’s coronation celebration when the young female aide saw the disastrous exit poll — and retched in shock.
The Sun can today lift the lid on the Tories’ shambolic election campaign that is being called the worst in modern political history.
Theresa May’s closest aides, Joint Chiefs of Staff Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, had started the battle convinced of a landslide.
Yet by dawn yesterday their catastrophic complacency was laid bare when the teary PM told staffers they would “live to fight another day”.
Furious aides and MPs were last night arguing over who was more to blame for the disaster — Nick or Fi?
A campaign source said: “They were so complacent, they thought they had it in the bag all along.
“They didn’t show anyone the manifesto, so nobody could properly brief it, and we lost control then and there.
“Decisions were taken at the very top and very little ever shared.
“Where was our retail offer? What were we saying to the Jams (Just About Managings)?
“It was all about Brexit, and that’s why we lost.”
One campaigner branded Hill “fickle, contrary, spiteful, pointlessly confrontational, hypocritical and cowardly at heart”.
They added: “That has not served the PM well. She is the PM’s Achilles heel.”
One source said Timothy and Hill “constantly bickered”.
Another pointed out that Sir Lynton Crosby, who successfully plotted David Cameron’s path to power in 2015, was not fully in charge until the last week “when panic began”.
They added: “Nick and Fi were telling people, ‘He’s only an adviser’.
“When you have someone that talented not being used properly, you need your head examined.”
One Cabinet minister said: “There was no engagement, no team effort.
“The team around the PM thought they could do it all for themselves.”
Who are Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill?
Nick Timothy: BORN in Birmingham, the steelworker’s son, 37, first worked for Theresa May as a Home Office special adviser.
Nick was appointed her joint chief of staff last July.
He is said to have had a key role in the Tory manifesto and was blamed for the catastrophic “dementia tax”.
He lists his hobbies as Aston Villa and Graham Greene.
Fiona Hill: SHARP-tongued Fiona Hill switched to politics from journalism, having worked for The Scotsman and Sky News.
The divorcée, 44, from Greenock, Renfrewshire, was a fierce May loyalist when a Home Office special adviser.
Sidelined after a spat with Michael Gove in 2014, she returned in July as Mrs May’s communications chief.
Other spin doctors were quick to turn their fire upwards.
One said: “There was no strategy and so we were flying blind.
“We were asked to go out and defend things without any ammunition and were totally cut off from the nest at the top.”
There was also an acceptance the campaign had dropped the ball on failing to spot the surge of pro-Corbyn youngsters turning out to vote.
“Robotic” Mrs May’s dire campaign was dominated by a disastrous social care shake-up.
Insiders also blamed the excessive length of the two-month campaign that allowed Labour to tear chunks from her carefully-crafted image.
It left her humiliated over ducking debates, policy U-turns and accusations of dodging the press.
One critic slammed the “arrogance” of running a “presidential campaign when you don’t have a presidential candidate”.
And an MP claimed: “It started out as all about Theresa, so she got all the flack. If the control freaks around her had allowed the Cabinet out, they could have soaked up some of the hits.”
But as the PM zig-zagged Britain in her slick campaign bus flanked by motorbike outriders she projected supreme confidence.
One aide said the PM was visibly moved as she thanked the team at Conservative Campaign HQ yesterday.
A source said the mood inside “was as brutal as you can imagine. Stunned silence, tears. Hot anger”.
They added: “By the time we saw her finally show some emotion in the campaign it was when she f***ed it all up.”
After calling the election on April 18 the PM adopted the slogan “strong and stable”.
But when she shoehorned it into every quote, voters quickly started to deride her.
Mrs May also trotted out key phrases that were winners with focus groups but was criticised for sounding like a machine.
She was nicknamed the “Maybot” on social media — and by junior campaign staff.
When asked by The Sun if she was robotic, Mrs May replied: “That’s not a description of myself I’d recognise” — instantly proving concerns.
In the early days of the campaign it was clear she was nervous around journalists.
Local papers like Cornwall Live complained they were detained in side rooms and barred from taking pictures of the PM on their phones.
And Mrs May reached new levels of mockery after refusing to answer questions from the Plymouth Herald without resorting back to her stock campaign slogans.
Events were tightly stage managed with a crowd of loyal party members summoned to cheer and wave placards.
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In a sign of how jumpy spin doctors were around the national press, aides would physically stop hacks from holding the microphones when asking questions — in case they dared to ask a follow-up.
Mrs May’s reputation for hiding away was only further compounded when she flatly refused to turn up to ITV’s leaders’ debate.
She sent Home Secretary Amber Rudd to represent her against the other party chiefs at a BBC showdown.
And attempts to humanise Mrs May in interviews backfired.
Telling ITV the naughtiest thing she had done was running through a wheat field unleashed more jibes.
But the real reputational devastation was yet to come.
One MP said: “The manifesto was the turning point.
“We were on this gleaming ship cruising toward a majority of 100, and then we sunk it on an iceberg of our own creation.”
The controversial proposal to shake up social care policy sent Tory MPs round the bend as furious elderly constituents rejected the plan.
One minister said: “The policy of going to war with our core vote at the same time the kids are flocking to Corbyn was f***ing criminal.”
Top Tory Nigel Evans added: “A manifesto should be about apple pie and cream but ours was laced with arsenic.”
Another Conservative MP said the campaign was “all dark and no light”.
A fourth said the real damage came with a U-turn on social care just days later.
They added: “Strong and stable was gone — suddenly she was on the backfoot and it gave Labour the canvas on which to paint her as weak and wobbly.”
