The man seen as the key to "decontaminating" the Tory party brand is back at David Cameron's side as the Tory conference begins, after a few months in California studying the latest US campaigning techniques.
Steve Hilton, a thirty-something former Saatchi adman and marketing expert, has been variously described as a "pint-sized Rasputin" and a man "whose influence is as large as his profile is low".
He is in many ways the opposite of his Old Etonian boss: son of Hungarian immigrants, scholarship boy, more at home in jeans than a suit, shunning the limelight. But he has shaped Cameron's new image embracing environmentalism and social concern.
Chris Bowlby asks what lies behind his influence.
This edition of Profile was first broadcast on Saturday September 27, 2008 at 1902BST on BBC Radio 4.
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