DAVID CAMERON’S former special adviser on housing is now simultaneously head of policy at leading think tank the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) and a consultant at a lobbying company which helps businesses with “political influencing” — it’s a clear illustration of the ecosystem linking corporate lobbyists, think tanks and No 10.

Alex Morton was Cameron’s housing special adviser from 2014-16. He helped to draft the housing bits of the 2015 manifesto and is a frequent commenter in Conservative circles, writing frequently for Tory website ConservativeHome.  

In April 2016 Morton left No 10 to join a lobbying company, Field Consulting, which offers to help companies “influence a political decision.” 

Field has a particular focus on “helping clients in the property sector secure planning consents.” 

Morton’s appointment had a particular irony, as his old boss Cameron warned about the “scandal of corporate lobbying” with “ex-advisers for hire, helping big business find the right way.”

At the end of March, the CPS, a venerable free market think tank founded by Margaret Thatcher herself, announced the launch of a “major new policy programme,” a “new generation initiative” to find “radical policy ideas for post-Brexit Britain” in housing, welfare and elsewhere. 

The programme will be run by the CPS’s new head of policy, Morton. The CPS can expect to be quoted extensively in the press and runs seminars with politicians, civil servants and the like putting out their new “free market” ideas. 

The CPS says Morton was “previously a director at Field Consulting.”

However, Morton hasn’t left the commercial lobbyist. Chris Rumfitt, boss of Field (and himself a former press aide to Tony Blair) told industry website Public Affairs News that Morton still works for the lobbying firm and “he very much remains available to clients as a consultant.” 

Field’s website still lists him as a director. So the think tank which is dispassionately looking at policy has a head of policy working as an influence-for-hire consultancy.  

Field’s clients include poorly performing private train firm Govia Thameslink and private property developer Berkeley Homes, which was criticised for luxury developments with separate “poor doors” for their limited number of social tenants. 

The CPS’s own direct funders are, ironically, more secret than the lobbyists: the CPS is one of the least transparent think tanks, and doesn’t reveal its funders. 

There are some clues — “tax-efficient” mobile phone firm Vodafone has paid CPS to hold a meeting at each of the last three Tory conferences. 

And just to show how small the corporate-lobbyist-government world is, Tony Pidgley, owner of Berkeley Homes, is personally thanked for helping with one recent CPS paper on housing. 

Pidgley’s wife Sarah also donated £5,000 to the Maidenhead Conservative Association — Theresa May’s constituency —  last November. So the world of “ideas” is a small circle running from property developers to lobbyists to think tanks to the Tory Party.