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Good day. Thank you very much for your many questions. I look forward to answering your questions tomorrow and on Tuesday. Well, this is the final installment of our series. In this series, I look at the strengths and weaknesses of the Conservative Party leadership candidates (from my own perspective, not that of the Conservative Party). Six ways to ask: “Have you thought about soft centrism? There’s not much point in saying it.” (That’s right.)
I started in the reverse order that the bookmakers rank the candidates’ odds. Mel Stride, Come on Patel y tom tugendhatNow, let’s move on to the shadow home secretary, James Cleverley.
Domestic politics is georgina healerRead previous edition Click here to view the newsletterSend us your gossip, thoughts and comments. insidepolitics@ft.com
agreement
Politics, like any other job, can be improved by doing it. One of the reasons the Conservatives should choose James Cleverley is his long experience in politics. He has been a full-time politician since being elected to the London Assembly in 2008. He has experienced and recovered from the setbacks that come with a political career (some self-inflicted, some not).
A loyal minister under Prime Ministers Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, he has no choice but to unite against a party that has taken to exposing its dirty secrets to the public. He is the candidate with the greatest moral authority to tell us that we will perish without him.
In the Foreign Office (one of the easiest jobs in government) and the Home Office (one of the hardest), he proved he could run key ministries while keeping civil servants, MPs, stakeholders and the Prime Minister’s Office happy. In this leadership race, he is one of the few candidates who has shown he can actually do good opposition work, rather than talking about his own interests and saying things that are completely unhelpful to him or his position. Robert Jenrick, for example, claimed the Conservative Party had simply put money into a “black hole.” Labour is desperately trying to force this word on the Conservatives.
And he has been in the public eye for a long time without being politically disliked. Indeed, one of the main reasons why the Conservatives should choose James Cleverley is that he is the most popular candidate in the opinion polls.
(Stewart Lewis and Sarah Lewis are two fake candidates that Ipsos uses as a criterion.)
Political parties, especially those that have just moved into opposition, tend to overcomplicate things. In many ways, what the Conservatives need in this campaign is very clear. What they need is someone who they have reason to believe can, and does, unite the party without people immediately hating them. do Performing day-to-day operations. There is one candidate who best fits the criteria. That person’s name is James Cleverly.
contra
James Cleverley’s last three choices for Conservative Party leader were Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Boris Johnson again. Cleverley supported Brexit in 2016 and, while briefly admitting that the Rwanda plan was not the best idea, he has never shown any particular desire to buck the party’s trend.
Since the ability to lead the party on a journey is an important factor in being successful as opposition leader. marvelous sign. Also, the fact that his habit of joking sometimes gets him into trouble.
The danger is that Cleverley is a “good on paper” candidate. Cleverley’s reluctance to take the party seriously is the reason why Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs list him as one of the candidates they do not want their party to elect. There is a risk that Cleverley will lead his party to another defeat and make little headway and impression.
let’s try this
I was in shock year and month It was performed at the Almeida Theatre last weekend. It is a wonderful play. (According to my partner, it is a great adaptation of the original book by Annie Ernaux.)
Unfortunately, it’s sold out, so my best hope is that it gets another run, but given that Almeida’s best plays tend to move to the West End, it’s worth keeping an eye out to see if this one does too.
Today’s top news
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TUC riots Trade union conference He is expected to put pressure on the new British Labour government to “get wages back” To offset a decade of real public sector wage cuts.
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Consulting fees skyrocket Ministry of the Interior’s expenditure on external consultants | 10x increase In the last parliament, driven by immigration policy, the new government suggested it would face tough choices if it wanted to significantly reduce consultancy costs.
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practical solution | One of the government’s plans to ease the pressure on overcrowded prisons is to encourage programs that reduce recidivism. People who find work after leaving prison are much less likely to reoffend than those who remain unemployed. robert wright Meet ex-convicts who have found work Through a bicycle repair shop run by a charity.
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inside the red line Ministers Ready to allow young Europeans to come and live and work Labour insists it has “no plans” to agree a youth migration scheme that could give young people from EU countries the right to work in the UK, but in the Times report by Oliver Wright and Bruno Waterfield, I hear that ministers are privately aware that they will have to make “compromises” on this issue.
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