Giles started all six interviews with the same question to the candidates: why should it be you?
JC: Well, I’ve got the most experience…and experience isn’t just about how long you’ve been doing stuff, it’s about what you’ve actually achieved in that time.
So from the time I was working with Boris at City Hall in London, I’ve been in delivery mode. I was responsible in part, for police conduct in the Metropolitan Police, I chucked corrupt coppers out of the Met, took away their pensions (and had some actually even in prison because of the work that I’ve done) …drove a big reform program in the London Fire Brigade… when I was party chairman, I obviously helped people in 2019, including the Prime Minister at the time, Boris Johnson again, to deliver the biggest majority we’d had in a generation…
I delivered at the Foreign Office, not just a recalibration of our global relationships, but for example…the Afghanistan evacuation did not go well… The Sudan evacuation I was responsible for went very much better.
And at the Home Office, I actually brought down net migration, not just talked about it, not just shouted about it, but actually did it. So I’ve been in delivery mode the whole time.
And final point, I’ve been the face and voice of the Conservative Party for years… and in opposition, your relationship with the media and your ability to communicate is 75 per cent of the job… and I demonstrably have more experience than any of the other candidates in that field.
So that’s that’s why I’m putting myself forward because I’ve got the best combinations of skills and experience to lead the party and ultimately to form a government again.
JC: You seem to understand what you think went wrong. Does the party as a whole understand what’s gone wrong and… and why it happened?
I think the party out in the country understood what went wrong before the party at Westminster…
… when I …. I’ve always gone out and about campaigning: by-elections, council elections, other parliamentary constituencies, and over and over again, people would take me to one corner and say, “This infighting is killing us. I’ve lost my council seat because of the rowing …I’ve lost”, “You know, my friend didn’t get elected because of this” and …and so the party at large understood that this infighting and backstabbing and briefing and defenestrating of leaders was killing us, and the fact that in Westminster, we seemed not to have learned that lesson until it affected us directly, I think, is frustrating and a bit of an insult to a lot of the activists that have been working so hard against the tide… because of our behaviour.
So the first thing that we need to do is to change our behaviour, and that is completely in our gift.
We don’t have to wait for any external factors. We can do that. And if we as the Westminster bit of the machine, get our act together and do so quickly, we can start repaying the loyalty of the of the party by ensuring we get a load of Councillors elected at the local government elections in May next year.
GD: You were in government right to the bitter end, as it were. How much is that a problem with some people in the party saying, “Look, you know, you were just part of that system that brought us to where we’ve got to?
JC: Well, all of the candidates have got experiences as government ministers and so we were all going to be, I suppose, to an extent, offsetting that background. But the point I would make is in the roles that I was required to deliver in…. I delivered in those roles.
So look…immigration: huge issue at the election, and I was Home Secretary when the election was called, and I recognise therefore, that I’ve got some responsibility for what happened there, but ultimately, I look at my actual record …the time that I was in the department… We saw returns, (deportations for want of a better word) increase. We saw the proportion of asylum applications that are granted decrease. We saw the number of people arrested and incarcerated for people smuggling increase. We…you know…the indicators during the time that I was responsible for this portfolio… heading in the right direction.
Plus I got the treaty with Rwanda.
Plus I got the Safety of Rwanda Act through the House of Commons, codifying the statement that “the British Parliament is sovereign.” So when I was in charge of this portfolio, things were heading in the right direction. I stepped into a very, very challenging circumstance. But my style is not to moan and groan and say, “Oh, it’s not fair. I’ve been given a hard job to do.”… If you don’t want to do a hard job, fine, don’t be in government.
But I’ve also…I’ve always embraced tough things that need to be done, and I’ve done them… not moaned about them or groaned about them… but done them.
And I’m very happy to be judged on my record.
GD: Let’s go back then to one of your other jobs, you were Party Chairman. How would the party structure and its functions change under you?
JC: So we’ve got to recognise that there were problems with CCHQ back in 2017. Because we did well in 2019 I think we ducked some difficult decisions that we should have dealt with at that point, and then we got caught out in ’24.
The relationship between CCHQ and the associations is one of mutual distrust. We cannot have that. So we’ve now got to have a situation where the associations believe in CCHQ and CCHQ believes in the associations so that they’re working together rather than rowing with each other.
I think personal contacts matter enormously. You know, if you’re an association chair and you send an email off to you disappear-down-a-black-hole@conservatives.com and you never get a response… of course, that’s going to generate huge friction. So you want an actual person with an actual number that you can talk to and sort things out. CCHQ is going to have to be smaller because we’ve got less money, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
We need to do things better: Candidate Selection, training… so that associations are really effective. We’ve all got fewer members than we would like, so let’s make sure the members we have got are well trained… that are effective… know how to talent spot so we get good candidate selection… so that CCHQ doesn’t have the excuse to interfere.
Let’s also make sure, of course, that the data that we all utilise is good quality data.
I was knocking on doors in Braintree, being told to go to doors by ‘Vote Source’ and discovering lifelong Labour voters behind those doors… on polling day… so I ditched that data and just went with what I know of my own constituency… and I got re-elected. That cannot happen again. So candidate selection, data management, assistance with fundraising, and genuinely good quality content, both printed and online, is absolutely key.
And finally, we’ve got to learn lessons where we were outperformed, and we were outperformed by Reform in the digital space, and they’ve only existed for a couple of years. We spent more money, and got less results, so we have absolutely got to shake that up.
GD: We’ll come to Reform in a minute… A lot of this sounds like “here’s the ‘doer’ stuff… this is what I would do to solve the problem”… what about that sort of “who are we, viscerally as a party” Do you want to create some room for the party to do that? Or do you think they don’t have time?
JC: Well look, we do have to learn lessons from what happened. But also, this is not, this is not a PhD thesis. This isn’t some academic exercise. We’re not gonna sit around the junior common room belly button gazing. We’ve actually got work to do.
And so yes, we need to analyse what happened… But this whole, kind of like “oh, let’s take the next five years trying to work out who we are and what we believe”… Is, I’m sorry… we just don’t have the luxury of that kind of time.
We know who we are. We are at heart a freedom-loving, low-tax party that believes that business and enterprise should be encouraged, not hampered, that people spend their own money better than governments spend their money. That people deserve the right to live in safety, which means strong policing, even-handed policing without fear or favour… strong defence (which is why I’m committed to 3 per cent of defence spending) because we have a duty on the world stage.
Look, I’ve been Foreign Secretary. I’ve looked the Chinese Foreign Minister in the eye. I’ve looked the Russian foreign minister in the eye… in fact, he stormed out the room because he didn’t like what I was saying about him. I’ve been to Kyiv. I’ve been to Taiwan. I know the threats that face us, many of which (without wanting to sound too cool and mysterious) I can’t discuss on this podcast. And I know if we are going to be taken seriously on the world stage, we have got to significantly increase our military presence…
…but I also know that we are the only party that will crack down on wasteful government spending… actually reduce the tax burden on the British people. None of those things take a five-year analysis.
This is what we are as a Conservative Party. So let’s rally around those things. Detail will come, and there will be more detail, but let’s not try and reinvent the wheel. We are conservatives. Let’s be conservative. We all know at heart what that means, and then the detail will come over time. But we have not got the luxury of sitting around, debating and discussing the minutiae, because there are Conservative colleagues standing for election in by-elections between now and next May and in a big, really key set of elections next May
GD: You talk about Conservatives… I can think of people who would have described themselves in the way that you’ve just described.. as Conservatives. They know what they are, and then they suddenly said, “No, we’re not actually, because you don’t seem to us to be very Conservative.” How worried are you about that Reform challenge, and what would you do about it?
JC: I think the thing that really hurt us… probably more than anything else… was the gulf between our narrative and our actions.
And this is where I’m going to rely on the advice of Eddie Rama, the Prime Minister of Albania, who said, “Don’t talk tough. Be tough.”
And that really, really struck me. And I think what had happened was we’d slipped into this habit of wanting to echo the frustrations of the British people and bang the table and talk tough, and then, actually, because some of these things are complicated and tricky… and aren’t always in our control, there was then a gap between what we said and what we did, and we managed to alienate people in both directions…
I think, in a desire to look tough and talk tough we came across as shrill or aggressive or nasty… and so we lost, we lost people that didn’t like that, and then, because we weren’t delivering against that rhetoric, we also lost the people that wanted us to be tough. And so we lost people both to Reform AND the Lib Dems.
And that takes a level of that takes a level of error, which is in some ways quite breathtaking… so let’s do the opposite.
And that’s what I did at the Home Office: Dial down the rhetoric… and massively, dial up the delivery. Don’t talk tough. Be tough. And that is absolutely the philosophy that I would take into government. It’s not, it’s not about …it’s not about… picking rows or puffing up your chest and trying to look hard. It’s actually about delivery. And if you do that, then we’ll win people back from Reform who want to see us deliver.
And the people that stayed at home (a big cohort of Conservative voters stayed at home, who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for us, couldn’t bring themselves to vote for anybody else) and the ones that drifted off to the Lib Dems, particularly down in the southwest…And those people, the small number of people, statistically, who voted Labour, and we can do it without losing our Conservative values.
JC: Couple of questions for you. I happened to overhear somebody talking to another person in the media, and they said, “Oh, I’ve just gone to listen to Cleverly.” And their first response was, “Did he say anything outrageous?”… You have a reputation for it. What do you say to members who are thinking about who to go for, MPs who are thinking about who to vote for, when you say on that front… you know, it’s a thing.
JC: It’s really easy not to have said anything wrong if you’ve not said anything. It’s really easy not to have done anything wrong if you’ve not done anything.
So look, take one metric… and I know it’s not the only metric, but take one metric. I’ve been on Question Time 14 times, which I think, if I’ve done my maths right, is the same as all the other candidates put together. Now, when you’re Leader of the Opposition, your main tool is your ability to communicate, and you cannot credibly be the leader of a political party if you’ve had a career hiding from the media… I never have.
Now that means sometimes… sometimes you make mistakes, but everyone does make mistakes, and it’s not about it’s not about “not falling off the horse” it’s about how quickly you get back on the horse.
And there is a reason why every single Prime Minister…even including David Cameron before I was a minister myself… have pushed me to the front when it comes to engaging with the media and communicating a conservative message… because I’m really very, very good at it… very good at it.
And that might sound egotistical, but the point is, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak, all put me as the face and voice of the party because they know I’m a very effective communicator. And as I say, when you’re in opposition, that is an incredibly important function.
GD: Around Westminster, and wider actually, you’ll hear lots of people say “Oh, everybody loves James.”… Is likability enough?
JC: It’s not enough, but it is necessary.
GD: …And does it shield saying something else about you? He …” He’s nice, but?”…
JC: Well, there will always be that kind of implied “But?”
They said that about Reagan.
And I know it’s always a bit funny when you compare yourself to political heroes of the past, but I’m not comparing myself to him…but I am very much learning from him. So I am a Thatcherite. She is, in very large part the reason that I am now a Conservative, but my real hero, even more than her…if this is not going to kind of lose me support… even more than her was Ronald Reagan. And Ronald Reagan was a staunch conviction, ideological conservative, but he also had an easy manner an optimistic demeanour, and a lightness to the way that he engaged with America…
…and particularly as he went into his re-election campaign, he absolutely swept the board. He had a landslide victory by being staunchly conservative, but also being someone that people could connect with. He had an appeal.
…and we mustn’t… we mustn’t allow ourselves to be framed as the “grumpy party” or the “weird party”… We’ve got to make people want to vote for us. And so there’s nothing wrong… there’s nothing wrong at all with being positive in your outlook.
If you want to use the word nice, if others use the word nice, you know, I’m comfortable with that, but what I can also point to is a career where I’ve made tough decisions… as I say, making sure corrupt coppers go to prison… big reform program in the Fire Brigade… looking eye to eye with the Russians and the Chinese and making it absolutely clear when their behaviour is unacceptable, then you know, the taking a much, much, much tougher line on immigration without looking aggressive whilst doing it.
So I’m quite happy to be the nice guy that gets things done.
GD: Lots of people know quite a lot about you, but what do you want the party to know about you? Because it’s a level of intrusion that maybe you haven’t had yet when it’s the Leader. What do you want the party to know about you that they may not know about you, that’s not to do with competencies or vision, but about you as a person?
JC: Well, I’ve always been a pretty open book.
I think this is why. This is why, when I decided to run for leader, the team that coalesced around me quickly has got proper A-grade people in it, because the people that worked with me, or people that worked with me have come back to work with me on this campaign. And I, I think, as a leader, whether a political leader, a business leader, a military leader, or a sporting leader, whatever, you’ve got to be able to attract and retain and motivate A-grade talent. And I, and I have always done that, and I’m not sure I’ve always been seen to do that…
…but anyone who’s worked with me will be able to say how I am as a leader, and the fact that in this campaign team, I’ve got people that worked with me at the Home Office and at the Foreign Office and CCHQ, and people that worked with me from when I was back at City Hall… The donors that have come to me are people that I have worked with for many, many, many, many, years, and for me, that reinforces what I know about myself, which is that compiling… you know, creating leading, and motivating teams is one of my real strong suits. That’s probably not something that I’ve shouted about, because I’ve not needed to shout about it. Now is the time where I’m doing the shouting.
But as I say, people can see the team I’ve pulled together, then they can see that it’s a quality outfit,
GD: Because effectively, people know about your wife and the painting of soldiers, and that sort of “revelatory bit” that perhaps others haven’t shared about themselves… you’ve already done.
JC: Yeah, and I don’t mind, I don’t mind showing a little bit of a non-political side. One of the criticisms that I had which …which kind of cut to the quick when I was out on the campaign trail, someone said, “James, where have the cooking videos gone? You used to put cooking videos on Instagram, and I don’t see any of those anymore” so I will take that to heart. I’ll try and get a cooking video on Insta… But, but look, I’ve always, I’ve been very happy to be a bit of an open book, because, you know, love me, hate me, respect me, or loathe me, you know what you’re going to get. And going into this leadership we do not have…. We don’t have the luxury of getting it wrong.
And there is a habit during leadership campaigns of people projecting onto the individual what they want them to be, and only finding out later that that’s not who they really were.
People know where they stand with me, and if you like that, vote for me if you don’t… fine.
GD: Last question that everybody’s had, you’ve detailed what you want to do. If it’s not you, does it still all stand?
JC: This party has done so much for me. It’s done so much for the country. This party has to succeed. We have to get back into government. And I will… I will never rest…It’s one of the reasons why I put myself forward, having originally almost convinced myself not to, because I know that with everything that’s at stake, if people don’t put themselves forward to try and make sure we preserve the party and get back into government, it would gnaw away at me and I would not be able to sleep.
So however this plays out, I am absolutely determined to make sure that we get the Conservative Party back on the front foot and back into government, the first opportunity.
GD: James Cleverly thanks for talking to ConservativeHome
JC: Cheers Giles