Cleverly hits out at populist ‘fantasy' amid London mayor bid speculation
Sir James also declined to explicitly rule out a bid for City Hall or another run for the party leadership as he was questioned about his political future following his defeat in the contest to replace Rishi Sunak last year.
But he said he had 'reconciled' himself with the result of the 2024 Tory leadership race and said the party should stop 'cycling through leaders'.
Appearing at the Institute For Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank on Tuesday, the senior backbencher called for greater accountability in politics by reducing the 'cloud of quangos' in the system.
Sir James said the 'go-to excuse for populist politicians' is to pretend 'difficult choices and trade-offs don't exist' and attack the Civil Service.
'I have lost count of the number of political gurus who said we should smash the system and start again from scratch,' he told the audience.
'Tempting though that may be, it is totally unrealistic, because all we need to do to deliver that is mobilise the alternative, anti-woke, right-wing civil service that's waiting in the wings to take things over when the Civil Service that we currently have is got rid of.
'Simple. It's also a fantasy. It's a complete nonsense. It's excuse-making, and it's weak.'
Instead, he said further action was needed to tackle the 'tangle of quangos, commissioners, panels advisory bodies, all making decisions, almost none of whom have been voted for, and none of whom can be voted out.'
Delighted to welcome @JamesCleverly to @IPPR – he is arguing for more honesty and more accountability in politics. https://t.co/tZuKPDA5GC pic.twitter.com/z4Z0T8ApqU
— Harry Quilter-Pinner (@harry_qp) July 15, 2025
He warned a 'disconnect between decision-making and accountability' introduces 'moral hazard' and 'erodes the very institutions upon which we rely'.
In a Q&A following the speech, the former Cabinet minister insisted he had 'reconciled' himself to his defeat at the leadership election and would not 'jump' into his next career move as he faced questions about his future.
Asked whether he was eyeing a bid for London mayor, another run for the Tory leadership or planning to remain on the back benches, he said: 'I like being in government.
'I don't like being in opposition, which is why I'm clear that I will play my part in helping to get Conservatives back into government, at every level of government.
'Exactly what I do next? I've forced a discipline on myself which is not to jump at something.
'I ran for leader. I didn't get it. I reconciled myself to that and I promised myself that I would spend some time thinking about exactly what I would do next.
'I know everyone will write into that 'Cleverly refuses to discount dot dot dot' – nothing I can do about that, you're going to write what you're going to write.
'But the simple fact of the matter is, I am focused on what I've always focused on, which is getting a Conservative government at every level to serve the British people, and that's my mission.'
He sought to strike an optimistic note about the future of the Conservative Party as it flounders in the polls, arguing it is 'the oldest and most successful political movement in human history' because 'we adapt, we evolve, we fight back'.
Sir James acknowledged opinion poll momentum for Reform posed a challenge for the Tories, but insisted Nigel Farage's party faced its own dilemma in seeking to be both 'new' and 'a repository for disgruntled former Conservatives'.
The rise of Reform is not unique to the UK, @JamesCleverly tells @harry_qp.
"'Smash the system' is an excuse, it's an easy way of ducking the problem" he says. pic.twitter.com/me59ht1guh
— IPPR (@IPPR) July 15, 2025
The senior Tory said: 'If their sales pitch is 'we're not like the old political parties', but they are mainly populated with people from my party, it's going to be really hard for them to reconcile that sales pitch.'
He hit out at former party members defecting to Reform, adding: 'I don't think it's smart. I don't think it's right.
'I think people lose credibility, particularly with people who have… very, very recently (stood as Conservatives) who then basically say 'the thing that made me realise I wasn't really a Tory was being booted out of office by the electorate'.'
Reflecting on his Tory leadership bid and whether he still harboured ambitions for the top job, he said: 'We have got to get out of this habit of cycling through leaders in the hope that ditching this one and picking a new one will make life easy for us.'
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South Wales Guardian
2 hours ago
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Powys County Times
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Sky News
4 hours ago
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The retreat from Afghanistan during the Taliban takeover in 2021 began as a farce, then it was a scandal and now it's a shoddy cover-up. The farce was when the then foreign secretary Dominic Raab remained on his holiday sunbed in Crete rather than return to work during the height of the evacuation crisis. It was a scandal because around 200 people were killed in the chaos, with distressing pictures of terrified Afghans clinging to the wings of moving aeroplanes at Kabul airport. And now we learn that in a massive cover-up, the Tory government of Rishi Sunak took out a superinjunction to gag the media from reporting a data breach that put 20,000 Afghans in danger. Over the years, superinjunctions granted by UK courts have been condemned for enabling celebrities and sports stars to cover-up extra-marital affairs, drug-taking and other secrets. The superinjunction granted to the government in 2023 to conceal a secret scheme to relocate Afghan nationals was obviously entirely different and no doubt sought for honourable motives. But it was a cover-up nonetheless and not so honourable because it hid a data blunder exposing names and contact details of 18,000 people who had applied for asylum in the UK under a resettlement scheme. The scheme had been set up by the government in 2021 to provide asylum for people who had worked with the UK armed forces and could be at risk of Taliban reprisals for working with western forces. In the Commons, the current defence secretary, John Healey, said it was "deeply uncomfortable" to be prevented from reporting the data breach blunder to MPs until now. 1:59 The ministers involved in seeking the gagging order were the former defence secretary Ben Wallace and the then armed forces minister James Heappey, he said. But while most MPs welcomed Mr Healey's apology, it's probably fair to say that if it hadn't been for tenacious campaigning by media organisations the superinjunction might not have been lifted by the High Court. One Tory MP, Mark Pritchard, accused the defence secretary of "wriggling" and said: "The fact is that he is justifying this superinjunction and not telling parliament, the press, the public and, unbelievably, the Afghans who were potentially in harm's way." And, among a number of individual cases highlighted by MPs, Lib Dem Calum Miller told MPs that "in the chaos of withdrawal" a constituent who left Afghanistan was promised by British officials that his pregnant wife could follow him. "Two years later, we have still not kept that promise," said Mr Miller. "My constituent's wife and child continue to move around in Afghanistan to evade the Taliban and my constituent is so desperate that he is talking about returning to Afghanistan - despite the risk to him - to be reunited with them." Reform UK's Zia Yusuf hit out at the Tory government's asylum policy, writing on X: "24k Afghans secretly granted asylum, costing British taxpayers up to £7bn. "The government covered it up. Who was in government? Home secretary: Suella Braverman. Immigration minister: Robert Jenrick." Later, Mr Healey was asked on LBC's News Agents podcast if the official responsible for the data breach is still employed by the government. "They are no longer doing the same job on the Afghan brief," he replied. Hmm. That suggests the person hasn't been fired, which will alarm those MPs who remain extremely concerned about this whole fiasco. Asked whether he would have taken out the superinjunction if he had been defence secretary in 2023, he replied: "Very, very unlikely." But when he was asked if he could rule out the use of superinjunctions by the Ministry of Defence in the future, Mr Healey said: "Well, you can never say never." So while Mr Healey will obviously be determined to avoid a farce in future, it appears that the threat of another Ministry of Defence cover-up in future hasn't gone away.
