This is the man in No 10 who inspired Cummings – and he didn't last long | Andy Beckett

John Hoskyns, Margaret Thatcher’s head of policy, also wanted to shake up Whitehall. He left, disappointed and frustrated

One of Dominic Cummings’ biggest successes, so far, has been convincing so many people he’s a political original. In important ways, he isn’t.

A decade ago, David Cameron’s government also featured a professional iconoclast who strode around Whitehall in ostentatiously casual clothes, demanding that the British state undergo drastic surgery. Steve Hilton, Cameron’s director of strategy, left Downing Street after two years, frustrated at his lack of progress. He now makes a living defending Donald Trump on Fox News.

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