Nick Timothy hired as columnist by The Daily Telegraph and The Sun

Nick Timothy quit his role as chief of staff after the election

Nick Timothy has been hired by The Daily Telegraph and The Sun newspapers.

Theresa May's former chief of staff left Downing Street after the election, in which the Tories lost their majority.

That was widely blamed on a manifesto of which Timothy had been the main author.

Long before he became one of May's two chiefs of staff, together with Fiona Hill, Timothy had become established as an influential Conservative thinker.

He has published a pamphlet on Joe Chamberlain, wrote a series of articles for the website ConservativeHome and for a while ran the New Schools Network, the organisation set up to help parents create free schools.

He also wrote about what went wrong in the Conservative's campaign for The Spectator.

'Highly personal attack'

After the election result in June, there was a sustained assault on the chiefs of staff in a series of articles that appeared across UK media, though the most ferocious score-settling seemed to be preserved for Hill.

In a series of articles for The Times, former Number 10 director of communications Katie Perrior launched a highly personal attack on the Prime Minister's former top team.

Timothy's hiring by the Telegraph opens up the enticing prospect of some further score-settling.

But his priority may well be elucidating a vision of conservatism which - though it may not have been matched by a clear retail offer in the manifesto - had previously struck many of his fellow Tories as timely.

He will be interviewed in this Saturday's Telegraph, and start writing a weekly column for the paper next Thursday.

The day of his column for The Sun, which may be monthly, is not yet fixed.