Steve Hilton, the man in charge of detoxifying the Tory brand, is to share an office with the party's media chief, Andy Coulson. Photograph: Andrew Parsons/PA
Love, it would appear, is breaking out at Conservative Campaign HQ. Andy Coulson, the party's communications chief, and Steve Hilton, its director of strategy, are now sharing the same office at the party's HQ on Millbank.
The Coulson-Hilton love-in is designed, no doubt, to scotch rumours of a clash between the two figures at the top of the party. The news that the "yin and yang" of the Tory campaign are sharing an office is disclosed today by Tim Montgomerie, the founder and editor of ConservativeHome. Montgomerie writes:
Steve Hilton, director of strategy, and Andy Coulson, director of communications, are now sharing an office at the heart of operations. The two men have taken over the third floor's last available meeting room and now sit opposite each other. This uniting of the party's yin and yang is the beginning of a big effort to ensure better communication of the party's strategy.
Coulson, the Essex boy who became editor of the News of the World, and Hilton, who has been the brains behind the detoxification of the Tory brand, are said to have differed over election strategy. The two men have always been on friendly personal terms. But Coulson was said to favour a harder edge while Hilton wanted to focus on a sunnier, optimistic message of the future in the mould of Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America" theme.
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