James Cleverly’s speech did a much better job than Tom Tugendhat’s of explaining what sort of person he is, and what he wants to do with the party. It was very characteristic of Cleverly: there were lots of mentions of ‘optimism’, which is probably his guiding philosophy in life, and some well-delivered jokes, including one about his time in the Reserves when he got a call telling him he had been mobilised. ‘I thought I was going to Basra, or Baghdad. And I was sent… to Luton,’ he told the hall, to genuine laughter. But he also focused heavily on his experience in government, trying to differentiate himself from Tugendhat in terms of the big jobs he’s had, and also to answer the doubts that he isn’t quite up to the role of leader.
Some of his speech, particularly the peroration, sounded like a team pep talk before a rugby match
He opened the speech by very slowly and quite quietly asking the party what its purpose was, before pausing dramatically. He then said that before the party could get back on track, it needed to say something: ‘sorry’. He added: ‘Sorry on behalf of the Conservative parliamentary party who let you down. We have to be better, much better, and under my leadership, we will be.’
His version of being better involved being ‘more optimistic’ (that word again), ‘more normal’ (lots of laughs to that), and selling ‘the benefits of conservatism with a smile’. He promised to ‘build more homes so that we can build a new generation of optimism in the tradition of Macmillan and Thatcher.’ He promised to ‘get rid of bad taxes like stamp duty’ and to make sure that ‘work always pays and that the state never takes more than half of any pound that you have earned.’ But beyond that, there wasn’t much policy in the speech. There was much more on why he was better than the other candidates, particularly Tugendhat, who he has been vying against to stay in the race. He repeatedly said that ‘now is not the time for an apprentice’, and that ‘we need a leader who can deliver from day one, someone who has already done the tough apprenticeship.’ He also clearly attacked Robert Jenrick by saying ‘these are consistent values, not opportunist, a signpost, not a weathervane.’ But his attacks on Kemi Badenoch were harder to discern.
Some of his speech, particularly the peroration, sounded like a team pep talk before a rugby match, with ‘talk is easy, doing is hard’, and ‘there is no time to lose, and I don’t lose’. But the speech did garner a much more enthusiastic reception than anything the previous speaker had offered. And if Cleverly is made leader, it probably would be rather like a rugby coaching session, complete with jokes that he would have to apologise for later. But he would probably get the team on the pitch, which isn’t happening right now.
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