• Publish Your article
  • Editorial Policy
  • Contact
  • Advertise
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
No Result
View All Result
UK Herald
  • Home
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    • All
    • Sports
    England rugby stadium Twickenham given new name after more than 100 years in shock new deal

    England rugby stadium Twickenham given new name after more than 100 years in shock new deal

    Peter Morgan dead at 65: Former Wales and Lions rugby star who became a politician passes away as club pays tribute

    Peter Morgan dead at 65: Former Wales and Lions rugby star who became a politician passes away as club pays tribute

    Horse racing tips: Unexposed Group 1 contender can stun the big guns at 14-1

    Horse racing tips: Unexposed Group 1 contender can stun the big guns at 14-1

    Woman ‘raped seven times by two French rugby stars who left her riddled with bite marks & with horror injuries’

    Woman ‘raped seven times by two French rugby stars who left her riddled with bite marks & with horror injuries’

    Horse racing tips: Gary Moore’s charge can gain revenge after falling last time out

    Horse racing tips: Gary Moore’s charge can gain revenge after falling last time out

    Ian Buckett dead at 56: Former Wales rugby star who was ‘admired and feared equally’ dies as tributes pour in

    Ian Buckett dead at 56: Former Wales rugby star who was ‘admired and feared equally’ dies as tributes pour in

    Horse racing tips: Bash the bookies with these longshots including 9-1 fancy

    Horse racing tips: Bash the bookies with these longshots including 9-1 fancy

    Shayne Philpott dead at 58 – New Zealand All Blacks rugby legend dies after suffering ‘medical event’

    Shayne Philpott dead at 58 – New Zealand All Blacks rugby legend dies after suffering ‘medical event’

    Horse racing tips: This 7-1 chance appears to have been laid out for race he won last year

    Horse racing tips: This 7-1 chance appears to have been laid out for race he won last year

  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Fashion
    • food
    • Health
    • Travel
    Gigantic £777,577,500 cruise ship with record-breaking water park to launch from UK

    Gigantic £777,577,500 cruise ship with record-breaking water park to launch from UK

    British Airways First Lounge at Heathrow Airport review: ‘So relaxing, I missed the final boarding call’

    British Airways First Lounge at Heathrow Airport review: ‘So relaxing, I missed the final boarding call’

    The cheapest Spanish holiday destinations revealed – from £13 flights to £31 hotels

    The cheapest Spanish holiday destinations revealed – from £13 flights to £31 hotels

    I followed a dusty path in Ibiza and found the ‘White Isle’s’ most iconic hotel

    I followed a dusty path in Ibiza and found the ‘White Isle’s’ most iconic hotel

    The UK’s £12 train journey where you can see polar bears from your seat

    The UK’s £12 train journey where you can see polar bears from your seat

    ‘Europe’s Hawaii’ that’s often dubbed a ‘Canaries alternative’ is having a record-breaking year

    ‘Europe’s Hawaii’ that’s often dubbed a ‘Canaries alternative’ is having a record-breaking year

    I’ll never go on another slum tour after speaking to a local

    I’ll never go on another slum tour after speaking to a local

    This ‘incredible’ road will leave you both amazed and terrified

    This ‘incredible’ road will leave you both amazed and terrified

    The world’s funniest country revealed — and Brits are way off the mark

    The world’s funniest country revealed — and Brits are way off the mark

    Wizz Air launches 5 new Spanish routes from the UK – but not everyone is happy

    Wizz Air launches 5 new Spanish routes from the UK – but not everyone is happy

    Trending Tags

    • Golden Globes
    • Mr. Robot
    • MotoGP 2017
    • Climate Change
    • Flat Earth
  • Health
  • Opinion
  • Science
  • Tech
  • Crypto
  • Travel
  • Real Estate
  • Sports
  • More
    • Press Release
UK Herald
No Result
View All Result

Why James Cleverly wants the Conservative Party to be less ‘moany’

by Justin Marsh
September 16, 2024
0
0
SHARES
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterReddit


The below content first appeared in Politics.co.uk’s Politics@Lunch newsletter, sign-up for free and never miss this briefing.

Keir Starmer is a prime minister in a hurry. Having already picked through a litany of contentious issues in his first few months in No 10, Starmer today is focussing on another: illegal immigration.

For this, the PM is in Rome, holding meetings with his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni. Meloni has overseen a 60 per cent drop in illegal migration across the Mediterranean Sea in the past year — and Starmer is apparently interested. Find further details here.

The Italian prime minister signed a deal with Albania last year to send some asylum-seekers to the Balkan country and process the asylum requests there. Asked whether he would consider a similar agreement, Starmer said over the weekend: “Let’s see. It’s early days, I’m interested in how that works, I think everybody else is.”

Cooper defended Labour’s bid to learn from Meloni, who was elected Italian PM on a populist, right-wing platform, across the media studios this morning. She insisted government has a “moral imperative” to stop the boats. Full quotes here.

But today: some reflections on the state of the Conservative leadership race, and one candidate’s plan to combat a cruel “perception” problem.

James Cleverly’s case to the Conservative Party

James Cleverly wants his fellow Conservatives to appear less “moany”. The shadow home secretary, the most experienced ex-minister left in contention, has argued his party suffers from a pernicious “perception” problem — one that a future leader must tackle if the Tories are to reclaim power in the near term.

Outlining his thesis on an episode of the Political Thinking podcast, hosted by the BBC’s Nick Robinson, Cleverly contended that his party is seen as overly “angry” and “negative”.

To return to government, Cleverly continued, Conservatives must challenge this “artificial perception”.

“I want to break this artificial perception that being Conservative means you are angry or negative or moany or grumpy”, he declared. “Because it just turns people off. It is running contrary to the mood of a lot of people that we need to win over, particularly younger voters.”

Cleverly is one of the four remaining candidates competing to succeed Rishi Sunak as Tory leader, and has therefore won the right to make his case to the party’s annual conference later this month. He is however, the only contender to explicitly locate this “perception” issue and call for a symbolic change of political style, alongside a broader reevaluation of policy substance.

The central implication of Cleverly’s comments is that the road to recovery does not run through a combative or muscular mode of conservatism — what the party faithful might view as ideologically pious, but others see as irrelevant and performative. The former foreign secretary doesn’t just want his party to pick its battles better, but to fight those battles more constructively.

Interestingly, the shadow home secretary’s pitch reflects Keir Starmer’s pledge, repeated throughout the election campaign, to pursue a politics “which treads a little lighter on all our lives”. As I have argued before, the promise successfully capitalised on the public’s collective fatigue of Johnsonian scandal, Trussite chaos and Sunakian performance.

Cleverly, therefore, wants both to neutralise this potent Labour attack line and, in doing so, draw some dividing lines between himself and other leadership rivals.

The immediate challenge for Cleverly at this stage in the leadership contest, as with other contenders, is to emerge as one of the final two to face a wider ballot of the Tory membership. In this way, the shadow home secretary’s pathway is pretty simple: he needs to leapfrog one of the two race frontrunners, either Kemi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick.

Of these two candidates, Badenoch would seem the most vulnerable — having come second to Jenrick in both MP voting rounds so far, recording deficits of six and five MPs respectively. As such, with Jenrick a likely shoo-in for the final stage of the contest, it makes sense that Cleverly is now subtly jibing Badenoch over her notorious pugnaciousness.

As I have observed before, the shadow housing secretary’s firebrand demeanour is both her most obvious strength — and her greatest weakness. Badenoch’s appeal in the Conservative Party is to those who desire not merely election victory, fleeting as that can prove, but advances in the wider “culture war”. For those who see and practice politics as a war of attrition, Badenoch — the candidate who can best take chunks out of Starmer — is the chosen one.

Cleverly, meanwhile, is keen to reframe the Conservative leadership race as a conversation about trust, competence and experience. In the end, choosing the most overtly oppositional candidate could prove a strong recipe for perennial opposition — but not power.

It will be interesting to see whether Cleverly expands on his argument about the Conservative Party’s “perception” at its annual conference, beginning 29th September. His success, in the end, may well rely on MPs and members being ready to hear it.

Subscribe to Politics@Lunch

Lunchtime briefing

‘Moral imperative’: Cooper defends bid to emulate right-wing Italian PM on migration

Lunchtime soundbite

‘It is very important that we have transparency — very important that you and others can see the rules are being followed.’

— Keir Starmer responds to questions about the declarations of clothes donated to him and his wife, Victoria. The PM is accused of breaking parliamentary rules by failing to declare donations of clothing for Lady Starmer within the designated time limit.

Now try this…

‘Graham Brady’s bombshell memoirs: Rishi’s big mistake, Boris’s lockdown outbursts and the “real Dave“’
The Telegraph is serialising former 1922 committee chair Sir Graham Brady’s memoirs. (Paywall)

‘How Labour let Nigel Farage win’
Keir Starmer’s strategists ordered campaign teams not to waste time fighting Reform UK in July’s election, reports Politico.

‘Tim Farron says Lib Dems must “make our own luck” at the next election’
The former Liberal Democrat leader tells PoliticsHome: “In our country, every liberal is a social democrat, but not every social democrat is a liberal.”

On this day in 2023:

Week-in-Review: Keir Starmer is slowly enlarging his ‘small target’

Subscribe to Politics@Lunch

The post Why James Cleverly wants the Conservative Party to be less ‘moany’ appeared first on Politics.co.uk.



Source link

Related Posts

Elon Musk is right and Richard Tice is wrong – batteries are the ‘new oil’

Elon Musk is right and Richard Tice is wrong – batteries are the ‘new oil’

by Justin Marsh
August 13, 2025
0

Richard Tice calls battery sites a menace. Nigel Farage brands them a con. Reform-led councils have already put the brakes on projects that could store about six gigawatts of clean power, enough to run six million...

‘There will be an alternative’: Jeremy Corbyn vows to form socialist political party

‘There will be an alternative’: Jeremy Corbyn vows to form socialist political party

by Justin Marsh
August 9, 2025
0

Jeremy Corbyn has issued his strongest signal yet that he will establish a political party positioned to the left of Labour.  The former Labour leader vowed that there would be an “alternative”...

‘We didn’t get the process right’ on welfare reforms, admits Keir Starmer

‘We didn’t get the process right’ on welfare reforms, admits Keir Starmer

by Justin Marsh
August 7, 2025
0

Keir Starmer has admitted that his government “didn’t get the process right” in the handling of its package of welfare reforms. The prime minister conceded that “it matters to” Labour MPs to...

The surprise strengthening of Rachel Reeves

The surprise strengthening of Rachel Reeves

by Justin Marsh
August 5, 2025
0

Rachel Reeves made a surprise, symbolic appearance this morning to aid the prime minister and health secretary Wes Streeting in setting out the government’s 10-year plan for a “Neighbourhood Health Service”. The...

One year of Labour and Europe — why the government must go further on EU reset 

One year of Labour and Europe — why the government must go further on EU reset 

by Justin Marsh
August 3, 2025
0

At 10pm on July 4, 2024, when the exit poll was revealed — making it clear that Keir Starmer would be our next prime minister — our hopes for a better relationship...

Sarah Smith: ‘Backing Institutes of Technology can help deliver Labour’s opportunity mission’

Sarah Smith: ‘Backing Institutes of Technology can help deliver Labour’s opportunity mission’

by Justin Marsh
August 1, 2025
0

After being appointed as Labour’s opportunity mission champion last year, I made it clear my role was to get out and learn from the education institutions that are making a real difference....

Next Post
One of the world’s most picturesque lakes is in the UK — but it’s not in the Lake District

One of the world’s most picturesque lakes is in the UK — but it’s not in the Lake District

Popular News

Bid to win a mini piece of top gear tv history

Bid to win a mini piece of top gear tv history

August 26, 2025
Gigantic £777,577,500 cruise ship with record-breaking water park to launch from UK

Gigantic £777,577,500 cruise ship with record-breaking water park to launch from UK

August 26, 2025
Wired says ‘AI-written’ story did not have ‘proper fact-check process’

Wired says ‘AI-written’ story did not have ‘proper fact-check process’

August 25, 2025
Rock and Rolls: £ 500k Phantom Takes a Plunge in Swimming Pool

Rock and Rolls: £ 500k Phantom Takes a Plunge in Swimming Pool

August 23, 2025
British Airways First Lounge at Heathrow Airport review: ‘So relaxing, I missed the final boarding call’

British Airways First Lounge at Heathrow Airport review: ‘So relaxing, I missed the final boarding call’

August 23, 2025
Fear during space mission but you have a trusted team behind you- Shubhanshu Shukla

Fear during space mission but you have a trusted team behind you- Shubhanshu Shukla

August 21, 2025
Toyota BZ4X Electric SUV Prices Cut to £ 36,995

Toyota BZ4X Electric SUV Prices Cut to £ 36,995

August 20, 2025
UK Herald

All Rights Reserved © UK HERALD - The Voice of UK

Important Links

  • Publish Your article
  • Editorial Policy
  • Contact
  • Advertise

...

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Politics
  • UK News
  • Business
  • Science
  • National
  • Entertainment
  • Gaming
  • Sports
  • Fashion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Health
  • Food

All Rights Reserved © UK HERALD - The Voice of UK