PM’s strategy guru quitting post to spend a year in US

David Cameron’s strategy guru Steve Hilton is quitting Downing Street for a year to take an academic position in the United States.

The Prime Minister’s closest adviser will take an “unpaid academic sabbatical at Stanford University”, but return next summer, a spokesman said.

“With his wife and young family, Steve will be moving to California. He will join Stanford as a visiting scholar at the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and will also be a visiting fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.”

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His teaching, researching and writing would focus on “innovation in government, public services and communities around the world”, the spokesman said.

Mr Hilton is the inspiration for many of the PM’s pet initiatives, including the “Big Society” and the decision to rebrand the Conservatives as green.

The unconventional adviser is known for his “blue-sky thinking” and laid-back style of dress, often seen shoeless and wearing shorts and a T-shirt when at No 10.