Sir Simon Milton

Mayor Boris  Johnson paid tribute to Sir Simon Milton at a memorial service at Westminster Abbey on 31 October. Sir Simon, who was Deputy Mayor and Chief of Staff, died on 11 April 2011.

Anyone who came to a meeting in the Mayor’s office in City Hall would be familiar with Simon Milton’s genius for cutting the cackle. I would have spent about half an hour windily extemporising what I thought was a brilliant scheme for the betterment of London while the Deputy Mayor sat in marmoreal silence, like a Buddha; and then just as I had reached my peroration his eyes would open. He would interrupt me with a small cough, and then he would tersely sum up – in about 50 words – what I had been trying to say. He would inform everyone what needed to be done and he would announce that the meeting was over.

So it is not perhaps surprising that since last April some of the commentary has focused on this super-Sir-Humphrey aspect of his personality, the unflappable technocrat, the details man. And yet that is wildly to underestimate his achievement and I think it misjudges his personality, because from his very earliest schooldays Simon was a showman.

He was a performer, and he was a leader. His school contemporaries remember a stellar performance in Oh What A Lovely War in which he interpreted the role of Sir John French, playing opposite the teenage Imogen Stubbs with a budding Dean Godson in the supporting cast. When he was elected to the presidency of the Cambridge Union – unopposed, since his enemies had either been painlessly liquidated or had concluded that resistance was futile – he did not campaign with Thatcherite speeches. He had no particular manifesto that his friends can recall. He was simply the funniest and most charismatic student politician of the year, with impeccable comic timing and a fund of gags that he apparently collated in a famous Blue File, in the manner of Bob Monkhouse.

In other words there was a paradox at work in Simon. He was the showpony who converted himself into the most prodigious workhorse. He was a natural gossip who became the soul of discretion. He was the university funster who became one of the most admired politicians in London – across the political spectrum. There are students of his success who believe that the transformation took place during his time helping to manage Sharaton’s, the family chain of patisseries. I have spoken to at least one former employee of Sharaton’s, and she has confirmed that the Miltons were excellent and kindly bosses, and that long before the days of Social Chapter or the 48 hour week they could expect to be pampered with extra squishy cream buns to take home at the end of the day. Simon also ran Miltons restaurant, another family venture; and there are some of his friends who think it was this experience that gave him the managerial skill that was to serve him so well in his career, that flair for exactly when to dish out and when to withhold the squishy cream bun; and he turned those skills to the service of this city.

However you look at the story, the reputation of Westminster Council had suffered a bad knock in the homes-for-votes affair. As leader of Westminster, Simon turned it round, and the council became one of the most successful in the country – with the highest levels of satisfaction and among the lowest council taxes. He saw that educational standards were too low, and he decided to do something about it, and the expansion of the first academies programme was very largely thanks to his vision and his drive.

So if you ask yourself how and why this performer and extrovert turned himself into this supremely effective administrator, I think there are many sides to the answer. It was his business experience that gave him the flair for the manipulation of the squishy bun; it was his immersion in local government that showed him how much you can do; indeed as Ronald Reagan once pointed out, there is no limit to what you can achieve in politics, as long as you are happy not to take the credit; and Simon understood that. I think that after his first brush with leukaemia, so long ago now, he understood how fleeting life is, and that may have given an urgency to his work.

I also think he loved London. He saw how much the city had given to him, and to his family – to his father Clive, who arrived on the kindertransport from Germany – and he wanted to give something back; and he did, on an extraordinary scale. In five, ten, fifty years time our city will be landmarked with things that he either inspired or encouraged – from Paddington basin to new academies to a cable car across the river to the new London plan.

He was one of only two Tories to be knighted in the reign of Tony Blair – which was a tribute to his political skill – and yet he fully deserved it. He never put on airs. He was no respecter of persons, and I remember when Prince Andrew came to lunch at City Hall and discussed the future of Battersea power station he said ‘Even if it is listed, can’t we just knock it down?’ To which Simon replied, ‘The same could be said of Buckingham Palace’.

He was utterly devoted to his sister Lisa, to his mother Ruth and of course to Robert, and it is desperately sad that we will not now see him complete his progression to a ministry in the Lords. He was a great public servant who has left the city richer for his work, and if anyone finds Simon Milton’s Blue File of gags they should know they are handling the work of a master.

Boris Johnson
Mayor of London