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Good morning. Thanks so much for all your questions, which I am looking forward to getting stuck into tomorrow and on Tuesday. For now, here is the latest in our series in which I consider the merits and faults of the Tory leadership candidates (from the Conservative party’s perspective, rather than my own, as there is little value in me saying in six different ways: “have you considered soggy centrism?”).
I have started in the reverse order of how the candidates’ odds are ranked by bookmakers: we have done Mel Stride, Priti Patel and Tom Tugendhat. Now we move on to shadow home secretary James Cleverly.
Inside Politics is edited by Georgina Quach. Read the previous edition of the newsletter here. Please send gossip, thoughts and feedback to insidepolitics@ft.com
In favour
Politics is like any other workplace: you tend to get better at it by doing it. One of the reasons that the Conservative party should pick James Cleverly is that he has been doing it for a long time. Since his election to the London Assembly back in 2008, he has been a full-time politician. He has experienced and recovered from the setbacks (some self-inflicted, some not) that all political careers involve.
Having been a loyal minister under Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, he is the candidate with the most moral authority to tell a party that has grown fond of airing its dirty laundry in public that it needs to unite or die.
At the Foreign Office (ultimately one of the easier jobs in the government) and the Home Office (one of the hardest) he proved he could run a major department, keeping civil servants, MPs, stakeholders and Downing Street happy. During this leadership election he has been one of the few contenders who has actually demonstrated that he can do good opposition, rather than talking about his own preoccupations or saying things that are simply unhelpful to him and his case — such as Robert Jenrick’s claim that the Tory party had simply thrown money into a “black hole”: a phrase that Labour desperately wants to make stick on the Conservatives.
And he has survived a long time in the public eye without becoming politically hated: indeed, one of the biggest reasons the Conservative party should pick James Cleverly is that he is the candidate the opinion polls tell us is the preferred pick!
(Stewart Lewis and Sarah Lewis are two fake candidates that Ipsos uses as a baseline.)
Political parties, particularly ones who have just entered opposition, like to overcomplicate things. In many ways, what the Conservatives need in this contest is really obvious: they need someone who the public doesn’t immediately dislike and can unite the party, whom they have reasonable grounds to believe could actually do the job day-to-day. There is one candidate who best meets that description and his name is James Cleverly.
Against
James Cleverly’s last three choices to be leader of the Conservative party were Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and then Boris Johnson again. He backed Brexit in 2016, and, despite briefly acknowledging that the Rwanda scheme was not the best idea, has never shown a particular desire to go against the party’s grain.
Given that a big part of what makes a successful opposition leader is the ability to take your party on a journey, that is not a great sign. Nor is the fact that his tendency for cracking jokes can occasionally get him into hot water.
The danger is that Cleverly is the “good on paper” candidate. The qualities which cause Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs to list him as one of the candidates they’d rather the party not pick may be outweighed by his reluctance to really take his party on. There’s a risk that he simply leads the party to another defeat where they gain little ground and make little impression.
Now try this
I was blown away by The Years at the Almeida last weekend. It’s a brilliant, brilliant play. (And according to my partner, a marvellous adaptation of the Annie Ernaux book on which it is based.)
Unfortunately, it is sold out so your best hope is a return, but given that the Almeida’s best work tends to transfer to the West End it is worth keeping an eye out should this similarly make the move.
Top stories today
TUC ruckus | The Trades Union Congress is expected to press Britain’s new Labour government for “pay restoration” to make up for a decade of public sector real-terms salary cuts.
Consultancy bill jumps | Home Office spending on external advisers increased 10-fold during the last parliament, driven by immigration policy, signalling the new government faces difficult choices if it wants to slash consultancy costs.
Working solution | One aspect of the government’s plan to ease pressure on overcrowded prisons is to encourage schemes that cut reoffending. People who find jobs after leaving prison are much less likely to reoffend than those left unemployed. Robert Wright meets former prisoners who have found work through a charity-owned bike repair shop.
Within red lines | Ministers are prepared to allow young Europeans to come and live and work in Britain as part of a wider reset of relations with Brussels after Brexit. The Times’s Oliver Wright and Bruno Waterfield hear that ministers privately recognise they will have to “give ground” on the issue, despite Labour’s insistence that it has “no plans” to agree a youth mobility scheme that could give young citizens of EU members states the right to work in the UK.
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