James Ford is a columnist for City AM and was an adviser to former Mayor of London Boris Johnson on transport policy
There are many reasons to be pleased that James Cleverly has thrown his hat into the ring to be Mayor of London. Firstly, it finally shows that the Conservative Party is taking the battle for City Hall in 2028 seriously. Secondly, it should (at last) force CCHQ to set out a timetable for selecting the official Conservative candidate. And thirdly – and this probably my favourite reason – because it is annoying all the right people.
Reform UK seems to have taken particular exception to James’s candidacy. Lee Anderson, the party’s principal rottweiler, used X to ask: “Does that mean the Lib Dems will have two candidates standing?” Laila Cunningham, Reform’s candidate for mayor, said that Cleverly could become “another Sadiq Khan” (and we should assume that she was not suggesting that James would easily win three elections in London).
Reform are clearly anxious that London politics just got more competitive.
They are right to be rattled.
Since January, when Laila Cunnigham was unveiled as Reform UK’s candidate, she has been able to run pretty much unopposed. She has mopped up the column inches and media appearances. She was feted at a grand rally at the Excel centre. She has ranted and raved on any TV show that will have her on about the crime rate (but, conspicuously, seems not to hold any strong opinions about any other topic in the capital). But now her putative tilt at City Hall has collided with reality. And it is a cold, harsh reality at that: Reform are floundering in the capital.
Sure, one solitary poll has put them in second place in London. But that can easily be dismissed as an outlier; a rogue result. Indeed, the Evening Standard even described it as a “shock poll” because its result seemed to contradict everything that we know and understand about current voting intentions in the capital. Reform is notoriously selective in which polls they chose to give credence too. They have been happy to dine out on that one poll from Savanta for the Mile End Institute (even though it showed them coming a pretty poor second on 20 per cent). But, by contrast, you will not hear a peep out of them about a more recent poll (from More in Common) that showed them in third place nationally for the first time since April 2025. We can debate whether Reform UK has peaked nationally this year, but they have long been also-rans in London. That one rogue poll was probably as good as it gets for Laila Cunningham. More importantly, that one Savanta poll was conducted before James Cleverly declared and there is every reason to think that subsequent polls will show a very different picture.
A far better – and more representative – picture of public opinion in London are the borough elections from May this year. And Reform did spectacularly badly in those. They talked up their chances of taking control of six boroughs but, in the end, they finished up with just one. Despite launching their campaign in Croydon, they failed to unseat the Conservative incumbent directly elected mayor there. Even in east and south east London, where the party expected to do well, serous gains in Bexley, Bromley, and Barking failed to materialise. In fact, Reform won just 5 per cent of the London council seats in which it fielded candidates (compared to 43 per cent in the rest of the country). In central London Reform took just a single seat (out of 360). Laila Cunningham’s decision not to defend her Lancaster Gate seat on Westminster City Council makes a lot of sense in hindsight. (Having your mayoral hopeful unable to keep a council seat is never a good look).
Laila Cunningham is right to be nervous about the threat posed by the Tories finally finding a heavyweight candidate for City Hall at last. And not just because her media honeymoon will now be over. James Cleverly is the most experienced candidate for City Hall any party has fielded.
Whereas Sadiq Khan had two years as a junior minister under his belt when he ran for mayor, James has held two of the great offices of state (as part of a ministerial career spanning five years), been party chairman for the 2019 landslide election win, and spent eight years on the London Assembly. And, away from Westminster, he managed to have a successful business career and rise to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Army Reserve too. By contrast Laila Cunningham spent a single, solitary term as a London borough councillor during which she pulled out of contesting a seat (in distant Rotherham) at the general election for the Conservatives and defected to Reform. This is not what either great stateswomen or serious mayoral candidates are made off.
Of course, it is still early days for James Cleverly’s bid to be mayor.
There is a long time – and a lot of hard campaigning to be done – before May 2028. James hasn’t even been selected as the official candidate yet.
But, on the basis of how badly Reform seem to be getting their knickers in a twist about him simply entering the race, I am feeling confident that Conservative fortunes in the capital have turned a corner. I am even more excited about the ominous silence emanating from City Hall at James’s news this weekend. I assume that Sadiq Khan is already cowering under his desk crying. Labour is the party that we need to focus on; the real threat. Reform are just noisy-but-ultimately-harmless interlopers.
James Ford is a columnist for City AM and was an adviser to former Mayor of London Boris Johnson on transport policy
There are many reasons to be pleased that James Cleverly has thrown his hat into the ring to be Mayor of London. Firstly, it finally shows that the Conservative Party is taking the battle for City Hall in 2028 seriously. Secondly, it should (at last) force CCHQ to set out a timetable for selecting the official Conservative candidate. And thirdly – and this probably my favourite reason – because it is annoying all the right people.
Reform UK seems to have taken particular exception to James’s candidacy. Lee Anderson, the party’s principal rottweiler, used X to ask: “Does that mean the Lib Dems will have two candidates standing?” Laila Cunningham, Reform’s candidate for mayor, said that Cleverly could become “another Sadiq Khan” (and we should assume that she was not suggesting that James would easily win three elections in London).
Reform are clearly anxious that London politics just got more competitive.
They are right to be rattled.
Since January, when Laila Cunnigham was unveiled as Reform UK’s candidate, she has been able to run pretty much unopposed. She has mopped up the column inches and media appearances. She was feted at a grand rally at the Excel centre. She has ranted and raved on any TV show that will have her on about the crime rate (but, conspicuously, seems not to hold any strong opinions about any other topic in the capital). But now her putative tilt at City Hall has collided with reality. And it is a cold, harsh reality at that: Reform are floundering in the capital.
Sure, one solitary poll has put them in second place in London. But that can easily be dismissed as an outlier; a rogue result. Indeed, the Evening Standard even described it as a “shock poll” because its result seemed to contradict everything that we know and understand about current voting intentions in the capital. Reform is notoriously selective in which polls they chose to give credence too. They have been happy to dine out on that one poll from Savanta for the Mile End Institute (even though it showed them coming a pretty poor second on 20 per cent). But, by contrast, you will not hear a peep out of them about a more recent poll (from More in Common) that showed them in third place nationally for the first time since April 2025. We can debate whether Reform UK has peaked nationally this year, but they have long been also-rans in London. That one rogue poll was probably as good as it gets for Laila Cunningham. More importantly, that one Savanta poll was conducted before James Cleverly declared and there is every reason to think that subsequent polls will show a very different picture.
A far better – and more representative – picture of public opinion in London are the borough elections from May this year. And Reform did spectacularly badly in those. They talked up their chances of taking control of six boroughs but, in the end, they finished up with just one. Despite launching their campaign in Croydon, they failed to unseat the Conservative incumbent directly elected mayor there. Even in east and south east London, where the party expected to do well, serous gains in Bexley, Bromley, and Barking failed to materialise. In fact, Reform won just 5 per cent of the London council seats in which it fielded candidates (compared to 43 per cent in the rest of the country). In central London Reform took just a single seat (out of 360). Laila Cunningham’s decision not to defend her Lancaster Gate seat on Westminster City Council makes a lot of sense in hindsight. (Having your mayoral hopeful unable to keep a council seat is never a good look).
Laila Cunningham is right to be nervous about the threat posed by the Tories finally finding a heavyweight candidate for City Hall at last. And not just because her media honeymoon will now be over. James Cleverly is the most experienced candidate for City Hall any party has fielded.
Whereas Sadiq Khan had two years as a junior minister under his belt when he ran for mayor, James has held two of the great offices of state (as part of a ministerial career spanning five years), been party chairman for the 2019 landslide election win, and spent eight years on the London Assembly. And, away from Westminster, he managed to have a successful business career and rise to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Army Reserve too. By contrast Laila Cunningham spent a single, solitary term as a London borough councillor during which she pulled out of contesting a seat (in distant Rotherham) at the general election for the Conservatives and defected to Reform. This is not what either great stateswomen or serious mayoral candidates are made off.
Of course, it is still early days for James Cleverly’s bid to be mayor.
There is a long time – and a lot of hard campaigning to be done – before May 2028. James hasn’t even been selected as the official candidate yet.
But, on the basis of how badly Reform seem to be getting their knickers in a twist about him simply entering the race, I am feeling confident that Conservative fortunes in the capital have turned a corner. I am even more excited about the ominous silence emanating from City Hall at James’s news this weekend. I assume that Sadiq Khan is already cowering under his desk crying. Labour is the party that we need to focus on; the real threat. Reform are just noisy-but-ultimately-harmless interlopers.