| Nick Timothy | |
| Honorific Suffix: | CBE MP |
| Office: | Downing Street Chief of Staff |
| Term Start: | 14 July 2016 |
| Term End: | 9 June 2017 |
| Primeminister: | Theresa May |
| Deputy: | Joanna Penn |
| Alongside: | Fiona Hill |
| Predecessor: | Edward Llewellyn |
| Successor: | Gavin Barwell |
| Office1: | Member of Parliament for West Suffolk |
| Term Start1: | 4 July 2024 |
| Predecessor1: | Matt Hancock |
| Majority1: | 3,247 (7.1%) |
| Birth Name: | Nicholas James Timothy |
| Birth Place: | Birmingham, England |
| Party: | Conservative |
| Alma Mater: | University of Sheffield |
Nicholas James Timothy (born March 1980) is a British Conservative Party politician and former political adviser, serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for West Suffolk since 2024.[1] [2] He served as Joint Downing Street Chief of Staff, alongside Fiona Hill, to Prime Minister Theresa May,[3] [4] [5] [6] until after the 2017 general election.[7]
Timothy was born in Birmingham, the son of a steel worker and a school secretary.[8] He was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School in Aston, Birmingham,[9] and at the University of Sheffield, where he gained a first in politics.[10] He was the first member of his family to attend university.
Timothy has cited as his inspiration in politics the Birmingham-born Liberal Unionist politician Joseph Chamberlain, of whom he wrote a short biography for the Conservative History Group.[11] He has supported conservative philosophies which he believes promote strong communities that make markets work and has argued the Conservative Party should focus on benefiting all citizens and regions.[8] [12]
Following his graduation, Timothy worked at the Conservative Research Department (CRD) for three years, from 2001 to 2004. In 2004, Timothy left the Conservative Research Department to work as corporate affairs adviser for the Corporation of London. In 2005, Timothy took up a post as a policy adviser for the Association of British Insurers. In 2006, Timothy returned to politics after two years in the financial sector, spending a year working for Theresa May - the first of three posts on May's staff. In 2007, Timothy returned to the CRD, where he worked for a further three years.
In 2010, Theresa May was appointed Secretary of State at the Home Office and appointed Timothy as a special adviser, focusing on police reform, immigration, and counter-terrorism policy. He spent five years working for the Home Secretary, before leaving, in 2015, to become a Director at the New Schools Network (NSN).[13] [14]
While at the NSN he spoke in favour of ending the 50% Rule which requires oversubscribed Free Schools to allocate half of their places without reference to faith.[15]
In 2015, Timothy wrote an article to express his worry that the People's Republic of China was effectively buying Britain's silence on allegations of Chinese human rights abuse and opposing China's involvement in sensitive sectors such as the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. He criticised David Cameron and George Osborne for "selling our national security to China" and asserted that "the Government seems intent on ignoring the evidence and presumably the advice of the security and intelligence agencies." He warned that security experts were worried that the Chinese could use their role in the programme to build weaknesses into computer systems which would allow them to shut down Britain's energy production at will and argued that "no amount of trade and investment should justify allowing a hostile state easy access to the country's critical national infrastructure."[16] [17]
In October 2016, the Health Service Journal rated him as the fifth most influential person in the English NHS in 2016.[18]
Timothy has stated that he voted to leave the European Union in the 2016 membership referendum.[19]
Following David Cameron's resignation as Prime Minister in the wake of the Brexit referendum result, Timothy took a sabbatical from his position at the NSN to work on Theresa May's 2016 leadership campaign. May's campaign was a success and Timothy was appointed Joint Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister on 14 July 2016.[20]
In spring 2017, May called a snap general election. As a result of the election, the Conservative Party lost its majority and became a minority government dependent on the Democratic Unionist Party for their majority. Timothy, along with Fiona Hill, faced immediate calls for his removal.[21] Theresa May was also given an ultimatum by Conservative Members of Parliament, to sack Timothy or face her own leadership challenge.[22] On 9 June 2017, Timothy resigned as Joint Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister.[23] Reflecting in 2020 on the projected cost of adult social care, Timothy wrote "Many things went wrong in that election campaign, but I resigned as joint Chief of Staff in Downing Street because our social care proposal blew up the manifesto."[24]
Since leaving Downing Street, Timothy has worked as a columnist for The Daily Telegraph newspaper[25] and a sports columnist for The Critic.[26] Timothy is the founder and co-editor of The Conservative Reader on Substack.[27] Timothy published a book about the future of conservatism, Remaking One Nation, in 2020.[28]
He also became a business consultant, founding trustee of a new specialist maths school,[29] Chairman of the Future of Conservatism project at Onward,[30] a Senior Policy Fellow at Policy Exchange,[31] a visiting professor at Sheffield University, a visiting fellow at Wadham College, Oxford, and an adviser to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. In early 2023 he completed an independent review of the Home Office on behalf of the Prime Minister and Home Secretary.
In January 2019 Timothy was appointed as a member of the organising committee of the 2022 Commonwealth Games, to be held in his home city of Birmingham.[32] Timothy also served as a board member of the Department for Education and the Government’s £250 million Sports Survival Package.[33]
In February 2018, Timothy denied allegations of antisemitism[34] following the publication of an article of which he was the principal author that claimed the existence of a "secret plot" to stop Brexit by the Jewish philanthropist George Soros.[35] In response, Timothy tweeted: "Throughout my career I’ve campaigned against antisemitism, helped secure more funding for security at synagogues and Jewish schools".[34] When the Jewish Chronicle reported on Theresa May's pro-Israel stance as Prime Minister, a source said "If [Timothy] was a journalist, and he was Jewish, you could imagine him editing the JC."[36]
In November 2019, Timothy failed to be selected as the Conservative candidate for the Meriden constituency in the West Midlands, for the 2019 general election.[37] The seat had previously been held by Dame Caroline Spelman, who opted to stand down as an MP over the "intensity of abuse arising out of Brexit".[38]
In February 2022, The New York Times released a podcast entitled "The Trojan Horse Affair" which was created by Brian Reed and Hamza Syed.[39] The podcast claimed that Nick Timothy contributed to the scandal when he emailed a Birmingham community centre which was due to host an event entitled "Trojan Horse or Trojan Hoax" in order to shut down the event. In the email it is alleged that Nick insinuated that the owners of the community centre would be associated with terrorism if they allowed the event to go ahead.[40] Timothy and Michael Gove wrote a joint foreword for a Policy Exchange report with their own account of how hardline activists had taken over several state schools in an attempt to impose, in the words of one of the several official inquiries, an “intolerant and aggressive Islamic ethos”.[41] The podcast has also since been discredited by Guardian columnist Sonia Sodha who argued that it "presents a one-sided account that minimises child protection concerns, misogyny and homophobia in order to exonerate the podcast’s hero, a man called Tahir Alam. In doing so, it breaches the standards the public have the right to expect of journalists, with cruel consequences for those it uses and abuses along the way."[42]
On 30 July 2023, Timothy was selected as the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for West Suffolk.[43] This was following Matt Hancock's announcement of standing down from parliament.[44] He defeated incumbent MP for Penrith and The Border Neil Hudson[45] [46] and former Financial Times journalist Sebastian Payne.[47] He said he hoped to "draw a line" under the controversy of Hancock who was suspended from the Conservative Party after he appeared on I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!.[48] Timothy was elected Member of Parliament for West Suffolk at the 2024 General Election.[49]
Nick Timothy and his family live in West Suffolk. He is also an Aston Villa supporter.