UK’s Hammond ‘frozen out’ of key decisions for June polls

Bloomberg

UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s closest advisers froze out Chancellor Philip Hammond as they drew up their plans for June’s election, according to a new book revealing the rift that developed between the two most senior teams in the British government.
May herself raised her eyebrows at
the mention of Hammond’s name in meetings, while his relations with her chief
of staff Nick Timothy were said to have been toxic, according to the book. Hammond was denied access to the manif-
esto and repeatedly protested to May’s team that he didn’t get to see the whole document until too late.
Instead, May’s aides relied on Hammond’s deputy at the time, David Gauke, to check that the party’s policies added up, the book says. Hammond also demanded that the Tories release full cost estimates for all their policies — but was overruled.
The book, which is being serialized in The Mail on Sunday newspaper, describes the series of top-secret meetings that
led up to May’s fateful decision to call a snap election at a time opinion polls suggested her Conservative Party would
pick up seats.
Instead, when British voters went to
the polls on June 8, May’s Tories lost their majority, casting doubt on the prime minister’s viability and complicating her Brexit plans. May now has to run Britain with a minority government, propped
up by Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party.