(Times paywall) Cracks widen between chancellor and No 10
< trouble in Paradise ? >
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cracks-widen-between-chancellor-and-no-10-xlv7jdlbb
"Relations between the chancellor and Theresa May’s top team have deteriorated following a series of clashes over policy and presentation.
Philip Hammond infuriated senior Downing Street aides by effectively committing the prime minister to ditching a promise not to raise VAT, tax or national insurance days after she called the election and before the policy had been settled"
"Yesterday, both sides denied reports that Mr Hammond had initially opposed Mrs May’s promise to cap energy bills for 17 million households "
"However, the relationship between the chancellor and No 10 — in particular Nick Timothy, one of Mrs May’s chiefs of staff — is understood to have become increasingly strained.
The unravelling of the March budget over a broken promise not to raise national insurance triggered mutual recriminations between Downing Street and the Treasury.
Mr Timothy, 37, was said to be “incandescent” at briefings, blamed on Mr Hammond’s aides, that he was economically illiterate.
The chief of staff was already said to be angry that Mr Hammond, 61, had insisted on watering down an ambitious free-schools building project 
to ensure that the budget was fiscally neutral.
Previous rows about Mrs May’s plans for a government test on whether foreign takeovers were in the national interest, successfully resisted by the chancellor,
as well as his doubts over her demands to put workers on boards, caused early tensions"
"Anger flared again after the chancellor’s briefing to journalists in Washington last month, three days after Mrs May announced the snap election.
Mr Hammond appeared unilaterally to set a key economic policy by criticising David Cameron’s pledge not to raise the main rates of tax
“It’s self-evidently clear that the commitments that were made in the 2015 manifesto did, and do today, constrain the ability of the government to manage the economy flexibly,”
"The briefing incensed No 10, where it was suspected that Mr Hammond was seeking to tie Mr Timothy’s hands as he prepared the manifesto.
“There was a lot of swearing and angry phone calls,”
Mr Hammond later retreated, making clear that the policy had not been settled.
“All chancellors would prefer to have more flexibility in how they manage the economy and how they manage the overall tax burden down [rather] than having their hands constrained
But what we put in the manifesto will be decided in the next few days.”
"Hayden Allan, his long-term special adviser, quit two days after the internal row."
"There is some agreement.
Both Mr Timothy and the chancellor are said to have pressed Mrs May to scrap one of Mr Cameron’s other controversial promises, the pensions triple lock."