Conservative need to get their act together quickly and reconnect with the electorate if they are to win power again, according to former Cabinet minister Sir James Cleverly.
In an exclusive interview with GB News, he also praised Reform UK leader Nigel Farage as “one of the best political communicators of our generation” but said he doesn’t think he has the answers that voters are looking for.
The former Tory leadership hopeful said that the Conservative Party brand is damaged and it is “disconnected” from the aspirations of the electorate.
He said the rise of Reform shows that “people want a champion” and the party needs to “address the fundamentals” about why young men are disillusioned with mainstream politics.
Cleverly also went on to talk about his wife’s cancer diagnosis and how he wants to push the use of AI in healthcare so more people are diagnosed at an early stage.
Speaking to Gloria De Piero on GB News about the Tories’ election defeat, he said: “Part of the reason that it is for many, many people that should be thinking about voting Conservative but who aren’t thinking of voting Conservative is because there is something that they feel is a bit at odds.
James Cleverly said the Conservatives Party brand is damaged and it is ‘disconnected’ from the aspirations of the electorate
GB NEWS
“I don’t like to use the word ‘brand’ when it comes to a political party, because it’s more than that, I think more important than that, but it’s the best shorthand that I can think of at the time.
“At the moment, our brand seems to be disconnected with their aspirations.
“The product is not in the wrong place, but the brand feels as if it’s in the wrong place. And the kind of language that we use, I mean, you’ve been in the house, pretty quickly people start developing this weird language. It’s crazy that you never, ever hear anywhere else.
“One of my bugbears is ‘deeply concerned’. I did my head in when I was at the Foreign Office, the number of things drafted in my name saying the UK is deeply concerned…why are we telling people how we feel? We should be telling people what we’re going to do.”
He added: “My party is the party that has just lost a general election and needs to lick its wounds and think about how it resets itself for the future. Now, if the Labour Party wants to continue not being normal, that’s their problem, but my party, we need to recognise that we need to reconnect with a whole load of people.
“And actually, when I say young, I don’t just mean people in their 20s, like my kids. I mean looking at the most recent election results, young means anyone under 50, and I think it’s a worry for political parties in general, but we have a particular duty within the Conservative Party to get our act together and do so quickly.”
James Cleverly said Nigel Farage is ‘very good at spotting opportunities’
GB NEWS
On the rise of Reform UK, he said: “It’s important that you understand, what one understands, or political parties understand, what is cause and what is effect.
“Because if you if you try to calibrate your actions to respond to the existence of Reform or Neil Farage getting headlines, which he’s very, very good at – he’s one of the best political communicators of our generation, and I’ve worked with some fantastic politicians, and he is a fantastic political communicator.
“He’s never run anything, but in the job that he’s got at the moment he is, I suppose, as good an example of what an insurgent political party needs at its helm. So we’ve got to recognise that and dismissing him is an error.
“But the question we ask ourselves is, does Reform exist because of other things that have happened? And my contention is that it does. And so if we address the reasons why people are going to Reform you don’t then need to address Reform, and this, I think, is what we need to do.
“So why do people feel so disillusioned with the political class en mass? Because he is as critical of us as he is of the Labour Government.
“Why are a lot of young men feeling very, very disillusioned, particularly with politics? Why do we not have answers to their questions? Why do we not seemingly have a way of giving them the opportunity they feel they need?
“Now, I don’t have all the answers at my fingertips at the moment, this is what a period in opposition is about. If you address those things you don’t then need to play whack-a-mole with policies that Reform might put forward.
“You’ve got to address the fundamentals. And the reason I say that is because, you look at what’s happening across mature democracies the world over is that the particularly younger voters are polarising massively.
“In the recent German elections, young men went AfD. Young women went Die Linke, which is the left-wing party. They both split from the centre and although the CDU, which is our sister party in Germany, we’ve now got a chancellor from the CDU, actually their vote share, just like the Labour Party is actually less impressive than the headline numbers, and the younger voters have deserted them.
“Same thing’s happening in the States, same things happening in France, Holland, Belgium, UK. So therefore there is a bigger issue than just Nigel Farage and one party, and if we make the mistake of obsessing about him and the one party, we will fail to address the underlying issues that are causing that disenchantment.
“You’ve got to get things in the right order. Now, again, Nigel is very good at spotting opportunities, to be seen as the champion of the people. And that says people want a champion.
“I don’t think he’s got the answers. I don’t think that Reform as a party has got the answers, but there is a clear political need that should be addressed. I think my party needs to think about that, because if we don’t, we leave a vacuum that will be filled by others.”
Cleverly went to say that AI should be used to turbocharge cancer care and said that his wife Susannah has been diagnosed with the disease at a late stage: “On the cancer stuff, I think there is a real opportunity to use things like AI. And I know AI isn’t going to be the solution to all our problems, but AI is really good at analysing big data sets and pattern spotting, which is the key for very early diagnosis, very early treatment.
“There are opportunities there and the government’s talking the talk but it’s missing opportunities. In fact, there’s been a cutting of funding to an AI-enabled cancer related [screening] and so we’re not doing as much, the government isn’t doing as much as it should or could. I want to push on that.
“I’m very, very keen, because I’ve seen the difference between Susie’s treatment. She got diagnosed relatively late. She’s in a really good place at the moment, but it would have been so much quicker and easier and less painful and cheaper if she had been diagnosed early. So I’m very keen on that.”
He added: “Susie is absolutely amazing, and so her strength and resilience was infectious. And because she was strong, I was able to stay pretty strong. I’ve relied a lot on friends and family and colleagues, and that’s when you really know who your good friends are.
“And I’ve been blessed because I’ve had some amazing people. I’ll be honest with you, Liz Truss, who was Foreign Secretary, so I was basically her number two in the Foreign Office, she was absolutely brilliant.
“She was absolutely brilliant. I know it’s very easy and it’s politically fun to have a dig at Liz, but she was absolutely brilliant. And she basically said, I’m not going to take any work off of you unless you need unless you need me to, so you keep doing your job until you can’t, and then step back until you need to step up again, so she was fantastic, and as were a load of other people.”
