The former Scottish Tory boss said the shadow home secretary had the “pragmatism, optimism and confidence” needed to succeed Rishi Sunak.
Her comments are a major boost for Cleverly, who is one of six candidates vying to become the next Tory leader in the wake of the party’s shattering general election defeat.
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Writing in the Sunday Times, Davidson said his experience as a former foreign secretary, home secretary and Tory chairman made him the ideal person for the job.
She said: “We need to pick a leader who can demonstrate and communicate the unity, pragmatism, optimism and confidence we must have to start winning again… for me the standout choice to take us forward is James Cleverly.
“A military man who understands duty and service. A business man who knows how to run organisations. A big hitter, holding two of the great offices of state at the Home Office and Foreign Office. A pragmatist who can unite all sections of the party.”
Davidson said Cleverly had “both rallied world leaders to Ukraine’s cause as foreign secretary and rallied local constituency activists during his time as party chairman”.
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She added: ” He knows that we must look outward to rebuild, not turn in on ourselves.
“As leader, he will keep the Conservative Party a broad church, knowing that’s where success lies. And his appeal has breadth, too, enabling us to win back voters that we lost to Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Reform.”
The other candidates for Tory leader are Kemi Badenoch, Tom Tugendhat, Robert Jenrick, Priti Patel and Mel Stride.
Liz Truss has described herself as a “victim” of “sabotage” almost two years after her party kicked her out of 10 Downing Street.
The former prime minister lost her job after just 49 days in office once she unveiled £45bn of unfunded tax cuts in her mini-Budget, a move which sent the markets into turmoil.
Explaining why her radical plans to reduce taxes had to be dropped so suddenly in 2022, she said: “I knew, and I was directly threatened with this, that there could potentially be a meltdown in terms of the government not being able to fund its own debt.”
“And I couldn’t risk that,” she said, saying that was “more important to me than me keeping my job”.
She said “powerful people” including the governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey and members of the Tory Party “undermined me”.
Truss continued: “For the good of the country, I had to remove myself from office.
“That doesn’t mean I think they were right to do that.
“I was the victim, frankly, of an attempt to sabotage my administration by people who didn’t agree with my policies.
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“That was the issue, and what I am saying – and why I am speaking out now – is unless we fix that accountability problem we have in Britain, is we are not going to be able to get proper conservative policies, like lower taxes, supply-side reform, and cutting the size of government.
“Because we have institutions that do not believe in those policies and are prepared to sabotage a government that tries to implement them.”
Truss then said, “I am not responsible for people’s mortgages going up,” – and blamed the Bank of England instead, as the independent institution is responsible for the country’s monetary policies.
She even slammed the current government after civil servants named her in the official briefing notes for the King’s Speech last month.
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Her name was subsequently removed from the notes on the gov.uk website – but that has not stopped Labour politicians from criticising her.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves blamed the economic struggles of the UK on Truss’s premiership on Thursday.
Speaking after the Bank of England finally lowered interest rates for the first time in four years, she maintained that the British economy’s foundations are still unsteady.
Reeves said: “Millions of people are still paying higher mortgage rates after the Conservatives’ mini-Budget less than two years ago that sent interest rates and mortgage rates soaring.”
Rachel Reeves, \"Homeowners will welcome this cut in interest rate\"
\"But millions of people are still paying higher mortgage rates after the Conservative Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng budget less than two years ago that sent interest rate and mortgage rates soaring\"
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Rachel Reeves, “Homeowners will welcome this cut in interest rate”
“But millions of people are still paying higher mortgage rates after the Conservative Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng budget less than two years ago that sent interest rate and mortgage rates soaring”
A cabinet minister has accused former PM Rishi Sunak of “deliberately covering up” the country’s crises when he was in government.
Speaking on Sky News’ Sunday with Trevor Phillips, the environment secretary, Steve Reed, said the Tories had left the country in a much worse state than previously expected – and that Labour were only just discovering how bad it is.
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Reed claimed the Conservatives left a “catastrophic” inheritance behind – although Phillips replied: “Is there an element of, let’s call it ‘Kabuki theatre’ here?”
He pointed out that chancellor Rachel Reeves herself said in June that, “we’ve got the OBR [Office for Budget Responsibility] now, we know things are in a pretty bad state, you don’t win at the election to find that out.’”
Reeves is expected to say the Tories left a £20bn black hole in a speech to parliament on Monday.
Phillips continued: “Yet now, you’re suddenly going, ‘oh my god, there’s all these things we didn’t know.’
“Was she wrong then or is she just doing theatre now?”
“Well there are things outside of what the OBR are covering,” Reed said, pointing to the overcrowding in prisons which he claimed the Tories had not been upfront about.
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But Phillips recalled a previous Labour press release about the overcrowding, suggesting the party knew about the crisis ahead of the getting into government.
“There isn’t anything new that you could not have known,” the Sky News host said.
Reed hit back: “We know now the prime minister received a letter from civil servants a week before he called the election warning him about this critical failure point, and that judges would no longer be able to send convicted criminals to prison if they deserve custodial sentence.”
Phillips said: “My point is, you and your colleagues would come in here, week after week after week, saying, ‘we don’t believe them, it’s worse than they’re saying.’
“And now suddenly you’re discovering that it’s worse than they were saying!”
“It’s not only that we didn’t know – the prime minister deliberately covered it up! They covered it up!” Reed said.
He then pointed to the real cost of the Rwanda scheme.
It’s not exactly a new political tactic – see the Conservatives’ ongoing claim Labour told them there was “no money left” when they took over in 2010 – but it is one they seem to be laying on rather thick so far.
Since getting the keys to No.10, the government has, almost without fail, blamed every major issue on the Tories.
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In fact, Keir Starmer said on Thursday the last government “left us the worst inheritance since the Second World War”.
He added: “Every day we are finding more mess they’ve left for us to clear up.”
The prime minister also tried to buy his government some time, saying: “We’ve started the rebuilding but the problems that have been left to fester for years, cannot be fixed overnight.”
His health secretary, Wes Streeting, said their legacy was “shocking”.
Obviously the Conservatives have not taken to this lying down.
Tory leadership hopeful, Mel Stride, on Friday dismissed any such claims against his party, saying: “This is all pitch rolling, smoke and mirrors, to suggest that they’ve come in and it’s far, far worse than they ever could possibly have imagined. ”
So, just how bad is it? Let’s take a step-back from the political spin and a look at some of the cold, hard facts around some of Labour’s most eye-catching claims from recent weeks.
It found the Care Quality Commission, which is responsible for inspecting NHS hospitals, GP surgeries and care homes in England, is not fit for purpose.
Inspectors were found to be lacking experience, with some having never been in a hospital before or met a person with dementia.
Its inspections backlog is so large that a fifth of services had never been given a rating – and one NHS hospital has not had an inspection for a decade.
Meanwhile, the independent public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office (NAO) found the “scale of challenge facing the NHS today and foreseeable in the years ahead is unprecedented”.
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It found a growing number of NHS bodies “have been unable to break even” with the amount of funding they’ve received, and the “pace of change” has been slow.
The authors of the NAO report said: “We are concerned that the NHS may be working at the limits of a system which might break before it is again able to provide patients with care that meets standards for timeliness and accessibility.”
It suggested policymakers must explain the potential mismatch between demand and funding, adding the NHS would need a larger budget or service levels would “deteriorate further”.
via Associated Press
Economy
The full extent of the economic inheritance will be revealed in full by chancellor Rachel Reeves on Monday.
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She is expected to reveal a “black hole” in the government finances worth tens of billions of pounds – possibly exceeding £20bn per year.
It said the last 14 years have been “extraordinary” – with earnings growing at their slowest rate in more than 200 years, and interest rates at a historic low.
“The period from 2010 to 2019 saw the biggest and most sustained cuts to public spending since World War 2,” the report said, adding that this all benefited the older generations.
The last five years have been a particularly lethal combination, due to the uncertainty of Brexit, the Covid pandemic and borrowing “on a scale even greater than seen during the financial crisis”, all of which meant taxes rose by more during the last five years than in any parliament since at least 1945.
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“The legacy for the next government will be a difficult one,” the IFS said. “Expected economic growth is slow.
“The fiscal policy responses to the three shocks of the financial crisis, Covid-19 and the cost of living crisis mean that public sector debt is high, and a combination of high interest rates and low growth means that even running a primary surplus will not be enough to get it on a downward trajectory.”
It also called out the repeatedly failed promises to raise fuel duties in line with inflation, which is “another unwanted legacy” for Labour.
It predicted that the future “looks harder” for the British economy compared to its other developed countries’ economies with low productivity and high inflation.
The IFS also noted that Labour’s note to the Tories from 2010 that “there is no money left” can be applied to the current government as it “remains true today”.
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“The biggest and most sustained cuts to public spending since World War 2”
– Institute for Fiscal Studies
Prisons
The new justice secretary Shabana Mahmood said last week that the UK is facing “the imminent collapse of the criminal justice system”, which sounded liek “some dystopian film”.
She said: “This is the legacy of the last Conservative government. This is the legacy of the guilty men.”
And figures released by the Ministry of Justice on Thursday showed how deep the overcrowding prison crisis is.
There were 73,804 recorded self-harm incidents in the last year, and 28,292 violent assaults in prisons over the last 12 months.
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Overcrowding in prisons increased for a third year in a row, meaning 23.6% of jails now have too many inmates.
Meanwhile, the performance of four in 10 prisons are either of concern or serious concern.
The NAO’s latest report found that the Tories spent £592m buying land and property along parts of the route which are no longer going ahead.
Construction costs have soared by £16.1bn just since 2020, too.
It will take three more years to cancel parts of the route at an additional cost of around £100m.
The trains, which will still run between Birmingham and Manchester, will also have less space than current services – a decline of up to 17%, NAO said.
According to the NAO, the government may need to decrease demand by “incentivising people to travel at different times or to not travel by rail”, although the spending watchdog warned that this this may constrain economic growth and increase environmental costs.
Alternatively, the government was advised to try “improving or adding infrastructure” – but that may be expensive and disruptive, too.
With the economy, the NHS, HS2 and the prison system all struggling, it seems Labour may have a point – they really did inherit quite the legacy.
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But now they’re in power, they can only blame the Conservatives for so long until the public get bored. The real question now is, how will they fix it?
Claire Coutinho was mocked in the Commons today after advising Labour not to use numbers “for which you have no basis” while in government.
The former net zero and energy security secretary, who now serves in the shadow cabinet, was trying to call Labour out over its supposed claim that each household would see its energy bills cut by £300 by 2030.
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She claimed Labour had been advertising that number everywhere in their election campaign, but now they are in power, their ministers have barely mentioned it.
Coutinho said: “When you get into government, and you speak in the House, you cannot use numbers for which you have no basis.
“They will learn this. They will learn this.”
The top Tory seemed to forget that her own party was widely accused of dishonesty when in government.
While Labour did use talk about savings on energy bills, they promised to save households “up to £300” – although some top figures in the party did forget to say “up to” during their election campaigns.
Tom Tugendhat changes his slogan for the Conservative leadership contest after realising it spelt out “turd” (2024) pic.twitter.com/Vo09V1TICT
— insane moments in british politics (@PoliticsMoments) July 25, 2024
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The contest to replace Rishi Sunak as Conservative Party leader has officially begun, as Tories are gradually started to put themselves forward.
After enduring a historic defeat in the general election and walking away with just 121 seats in total, former PM Sunak said he was stepping back from the helm of the party when his successor was chosen.
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As the fight for the soul of the party begins, it remains to be seen whether it will end up going for a more centrist figure, or leaning further right.
Here’s who has officially announced their leadership bids, who is expected to – and how long this whole competition is going to go on for…
1. James Cleverly
Shadow home secretary James Cleverly
via Associated Press
The former home secretary (who now shadows the same role) announced his plan to run on Tuesday, a day before nominations actually opened.
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Seen as a moderate within the Conservative ranks, he has said the Conservatives need to “re-establish our reputation as the party who, in government, helps grow the economy, helps people achieve their goals, their dream and their aspirations”.
Alluding to the party’s historic loss at the ballot box, he said: “We must ditch the self-indulgent infighting and be ready to deliver when the next chance comes.”
According to a Savanta poll shared with Sky News, Cleverly has a net favourability of -9 with the general public.
He held several ministerial jobs under Boris Johnson before being appointed as the education secretary at the end of the ex-PM’s premiership.
He was foreign secretary for both Liz Truss and Sunak, and home secretary from November 2023 and July 2024.
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2. Tom Tugendhat
Shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat
Anadolu via Anadolu via Getty Images
Formerly the security minister, Tugendhat now shadows the same role on the other side of the House.
Although he launched his campaign with a bang by saying he would consider leaving the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights), he is usually perceived as a moderate in the one nation wing of the party.
He argued in an article for The Telegraph that he would prepared to leave the ECHR if institutions make it harder to control the country’s borders, claiming this was a “common sense Conservative position” to take.
The former army officer suggested defence spending should be pulled up to 3% of GDP, and claimed he was running “to be the next Conservative prime minister”.
He is expected to try and appeal to Tory members more sympathetic to Reform UK.
His campaign manager, Tory MP Danny Kruger, said Jenrick has the “energy, temperament and policy agenda to take on our rivals and lead us back to power in five years.”
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He was not included in the Savanta poll because he did not run in the last leadership election in 2022.
Who else is expected to run?
Mel Stride, shadow work and pensions secretary, admitted at the weekend he was “considering” putting himself forward – he held onto his seat in the election by just 61 votes.
Former home secretary Suella Braverman and her predecessor Priti Patel are both expected to put themselves forward in the coming days.
Kemi Badenoch, shadow housing, communities and local government secretary, may also join the race.
Shadow health secretary Victoria Atkins was expected to run, but she said she would not be in a social media post.
Rishi Sunak announced his resignation as Tory Party leader when he lost the general election
via Associated Press
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How will the process work?
The nominations for the candidates opened on July 24.
Each candidate needs to secure backing from 10 other MPs by July 29 to make it to the next round.
But, only around 100 MPs will be able to support a chosen candidate.
That’s because MPs who are whips or who sit on the executive backbencher 1922 committee cannot support a candidate.
It means only 10 Tories – at most – will be able to move to progress past this point in the race.
If two or more candidates get through, a campaign will take place throughout the summer.
In September, MPs cast their votes on the remaining candidates.
The four with the most votes will be selected, and all offered a chance to speak at the Tory party conference, (from September 29 to October 2), and MPs will vote again.
The two with the most vote go through to the next hurdle.
The remaining pair will then have to go before the party members, who will vote on their favourite candidate in an online ballot which closes on October 31.
To vote, members must have been “active” when the whole contest opened in July, and been members for at least 90 days before the ballot closes.
The new leader and official leader of the opposition will be confirmed on November 2, and Sunak’s time leading the Conservatives will officially end.
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They will become the sixth leader of the Tory Party since 2016.
The home secretary has claimed the Tories intended on spending £10 billion on the now-scrapped Rwanda deportation scheme.
In the Commons on Monday, Yvette Cooper said the full expense of the plan to send asylum seekers who arrive to the UK in small boats to Rwanda was not fully disclosed to parliament.
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The policy, which Labour dropped when it got into power earlier this month, has already cost the British taxpayer £700m over the last two and a half years, according to Cooper.
Cooper continued: “Those costs include £290m payments to Rwanda, chartering flights that never took off, detaining hundreds of people and then releasing them, and paying for more 1,000 civil servants to work on the scheme.
Cooper also said if the scheme had ever “got going” it would only cover a “minority” of arrivals and the taxpayer would still have to pay out “no matter how many people were relocated”.
The cabinet minister added: “Over the six years of the migration and economic development partnership forecast, the previous government had planned to spend over £10bn of taxpayers money on the scheme – they did not tell parliament that.”
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Cooper dubbed it a “costly con” which has been paid for by the taxpayer.
Keir Starmer: \"Let me be clear, there is no need to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights… not now, not ever… Britain belongs on the world stage.\" pic.twitter.com/58lWXA6Pmr
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Keir Starmer: “Let me be clear, there is no need to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights… not now, not ever… Britain belongs on the world stage.” pic.twitter.com/58lWXA6Pmr
Conservative mayor Lord Houchen called for “civility” in the upcoming Tory leadership contest, shortly after Suella Braverman’s made some eyebrow-raising comments about the party’s direction.
The former home secretary and current backbencher – who is expected to run as Conservative leader – criticised people who lean further to centre over the weekend.
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She told The Telegraph: “If we don’t recover the votes we deliberately, and arrogantly, spurned, we will turn the Conservative Party into the 21st Century version of the 20th Century Liberal Party.
“We can do better than being a collection of fanatical, irrelevant, centrist cranks, who make it our business to insult our should-be voters for not being as smug and self-righteous as we are.”
Asked what he made of these comments on Sky News on Sunday, Houchen said the Tory party leadership should not be based on the past, but the future.
He also there should not be any “blue-on-blue attacks”.
Houchen added: “If we want to spend the next two, three, four, five months fighting with each other that goes to the cause of the election defeat just two weeks ago.
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“And I would implore Suella, as well as every other leadership contender, to conduct this leadership contest with civility. Let’s come together and let’s offer a positive option to the country.”
He said voters “want a party that isn’t going to fight like cats in a sack”, adding that the electorate thought the Tories cared more about “in-fighting and positioning within the Conservative Party and within the government than caring about our country”.
The mayor suggested any future Tory leader needs to rule out working with Reform too, as they are a “symptom not a cause” of the problem.
But Braverman called for a deal with the populist party only a few weeks ago.
Speaking to GB Newsearlier this month, she said there was “only room for one Conservative Party on the right of British politics”.
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The backbencher said: “There’s very little I disagree with when it comes to Nigel Farage and I met thousands of people throughout this campaign, and many, many people said to me, I’m a lifelong Tory voter, but I’m going to vote Reform.”
“They are feeling betrayed. They feel let down. They feel politically homeless because of our failures,” she added.
“So we have to address the issue of Reform. I’m not really interested in the form of what that takes, but we need to find an accommodation with Reform, with Nigel Farage, so that we can take the fight to Labour and win the next election.”
A top Tory has been called out for interrupting a cabinet minister and heckling jim from the dispatch box.
Shadow health secretary Victoria Atkins, who is expected to run for the party leadership, had to be rebuked by the deputy speaker for her “abominable” behaviour in the Commons.
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On Friday afternoon, the new environment, food and rural affairs secretary Steve Reed began his first speech as a member of government by talking about the Labour’s plan to “get Britain building again”.
It was part of the parliamentary debate on the King’s Speech.
But, he was interrupted repeatedly by Tories – first by Tory backbencher and former party chair Richard Holden, who stood up to indicate he wanted to speak.
But Reed refused to give way, saying there was not enough time for Holden’s speech and that other “members should have spoken for less time” earlier in the three-hour debate.
Reed then attacked the Conservatives for neglected parts of the country.
The shadow housing, communities and local government secretary, Kemi Badenoch, who is also expected to try out for Tory leader, then attempted to cut in.
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But Reed said: “I am very sorry but there are only three minutes left and I need to cover the points that have been raised. They had their time.”
He resumed by talking about how Labour plans to increase the number of mental health professionals.
Atkins then jumped up and leant across the despatch box while shouting at Reed, seemingly irate.
The deputy speaker Sir Christopher Chope had to shout: “Order. The right honourable member for Louth and Horncastle [Atkins] has behaved abominably.”
According to The Guardian, a spokesperson for Atkins’ office said: “Conservative MPs were trying to get answers about their budgets for farming, flood defences and food security, which the minister ignored.
“She will always stand up fearlessly for farmers and our rural area in Westminster, even if that means a rare admonishment from the Chair.”
Reed wrapped up his speech by reeling off the “Tories’ failure”, calling his opponents “the party of broken dreams”.
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Closing the debate, Reed said: “After 14 years of chaos, there is once again hope for our environment, hope for our countryside and hope for our rural communities. I welcome the king’s speech, I recommend it to this house.”
Over the weekend, clips of this exchange were picked up by other MPs….
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This happened during my first experience of a debate in the chamber. The behaviour of several Conservative MPs was appalling. After the debate, I asked a group of them why they behaved that way. I was accused of rudeness myself for having the temerity to ask. Absolutely shocking. https://t.co/PuS57iyTqI
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Absolutely shocking. https://t.co/PuS57iyTqI— Max Wilkinson MP (@mpmwilko) July 20, 2024\n\n\n","options":{"_hide_media":{"label":"Hide photos, videos, and cards","value":false},"_maxwidth":{"label":"Adjust width","placeholder":"220-550, in px","value":""},"_theme":{"value":"","values":{"dark":"Use dark theme"}}},"provider_name":"Twitter","title":"Max Wilkinson MP on Twitter / 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