It’s clearer than ever: Cleverly is the horse to back
For what it’s worth – and I shall explain later why my view may not be worth very much – I reckon that James Cleverley gave the most polished and energetic performance of the quartet competing for the Conservative leadership. In doing so, I think he largely dismissed fears amongst some MPs that he’s not determined enough to fight for the top job.
“Let’s do this,” he snarled for the TV cameras as he stomped onto the conference stage and immediately set out a tough-guy persona that tried to brook no argument. He said Tories should not wallow in self-pity and said he was determined to “get things done for party and country.”
Battles that take place within, as distinct from outside, political parties always try to look like friendly affairs, in a hail-fellow, well-met sort of way. The truth however is vastly different. In spite of the fact that those taking place usually have to go on working with each other they are often the scene of brutal business.
The current and seemingly interminable contest has thus far retained a certain civility amongst the contenders and shows no sign of repeating, say, such bitter past contests as that between Denis Healey versus Michael Foot for the Labour leadership forty-odd years ago.
Can it continue in this vein? I’m not at all sure, especially after what must have been an exhausting time for all four applicants at the Conservative Party conference. Not only did they all suffer an hour long grilling on the Birmingham conference main stage, which they had to reprise at the same venue twenty-four hours later, but all had to appear at numerous party fringe meetings
I watched all of these platform appearances and a definite theme emerged from each.
Cleverly insisted that he’d “re-energise” Tory voters who stayed at home on July 4 and “get them off the sofas and voting Conservative again.”
However, it was how he dealt with his opponents that intrigued this observer. With many conference-goers taking note of how often Tom Tugendhat, the former security minister, regaled his audiences with tales of “combat” during his Army service in Iraq and Afghanistan, Cleverley told of his days in the Royal Artillery reserve.
Once when in command of a gun battery in Wales, he was told he was being called up for a new posting in – wait for it – Luton. Cue much laughter, although he did not mention if there had been any combat in his new role.
He also made much of his service as both foreign secretary and home secretary – senior posts that none of the other three had achieved. He pointed out that on a visit to Beijing he looked the Chinese foreign minister “in the eye” and told him, “Don’t you invade Taiwan.”
When last this observer looked, Taiwan had not been invaded by the Chinese.
However, this candidate’s message was clear. He reckons he’s easily the most experienced of all the leadership candidates, commenting: “Now is not the time for apprentices.”
Furthermore, when he was Home Secretary he didn’t walk out of a Cabinet-level challenge over the rules in a new immigration bill. From where I was sitting this appeared to be a side swipe at Robert Jenrick, who did walk out of government over this measure.
For his part, Mr Jenrick insists that only a New Conservative Party, presumably to replace the one that was hammered in the July 4 general election, will now do. He made no apology for this unashamed copy of Tony Blair’s New Labour project – but made plain that his new party would involve a comprehensive rethink.
He believes that his views on immigration are the strongest of the four candidates and he said that everyone who enters Britain illegally should be “detained and deported” swiftly. Furthermore he said that his stand in leaving the government over his opposition to the immigration bill had helped him hold his Newark seat in the general election.
“My constituents knew I took a stand,” he said.
On his bid for a new party, Mr Jenrick should be aware that after their 1997 wipeout by Labour, the Tory hierarchy commissioned a venerable peer to look into possible improvements. After a thorough examination the noble lord reported: “There’s no point in changing. We’ll still be called the bloody Tories.”
Of the four candidates, Kemi Badenoch was insistent about the need for a new politics to champion young people to give them a party of which they could be proud with Conservative beliefs needed more than ever, adding: “We will help them to shoot for the stars.”
Mr Tugendhat made much of his time in the Army and insisted that both the Conservative party and Britain had been built on patriotism and he insisted that his Army service fitted him for the task.
He said: “I am standing to be the next Prime Minister of this country and I know what leadership really is.”
Describing the Labour government as “venal and vindictive” he insisted that Conservatives had to fight to “rescue our country.”
Having said that, I thought James Cleverley is the best of the bunch in the Tory leadership race, the others need not worry, assuming any of them do.
In the past I backed Denis Healey to beat Michael Foot for the Labour leadership in 1980 and Michael Heseltine to defeat John Major as Tory leader and Prime Minister in 1990.