Sir James Cleverly has set out a 12-word plan to end Labour's reign in London, insisting that making women feel safe to walk the capital's streets is key to liberating everyone to “enjoy the greatest city on earth”.
The former Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary wants to wrest control of the capital from Labour and is determined to tackle the fear of crime. If he wins the Conservative nomination and becomes mayor, a key test for his time in office will be ensuring that women can “get home feeling safe and secure”.
A 12-word vision for the capital
He shared his plan with the Sunday Express in an interview: “If young women feel safe in public, everyone else will feel safe… If we can get that right, and people feel liberated to enjoy the greatest city on Earth, everyone's a winner.”
Sir James believes the present mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan, has “lost his passion” and is “faxing it in” at a time when a host of rival global cities want to “eat our lunch”. The 57-year-old is confident it is possible for a Tory to win in the capital – a feat not accomplished since Boris Johnson's victory in 2012.
“I am only putting myself forward because I can see a path to winning this, and it is well worth the effort,” he said in a wide-ranging interview with the Sunday Express. “Because if we can get London firing on all cylinders again, the positive impact that will have on the UK as a whole is huge.”
Backing for Badenoch and a global outlook
Sir James hopes that a win in London would help set the stage for Kemi Badenoch becoming prime minister. The pair competed for the Tory leadership, but he stressed the strength of their friendship.
“We're friends as well as colleagues,” he said, “We've always got on very, very well. I can absolutely see she is what the country needs at the moment. I want to play my part in getting London where it needs to be, and getting her where she needs to be.”
Sir James, who will not stand again as an MP, resists the idea that London thrives at the expense of the rest of the country.
He said, “That is completely the wrong way of looking at it. London is not competing with Manchester; it's not competing with Birmingham; it's not competing with Leeds. London is competing with Paris and with New York, and with Mumbai and with Lagos. If London is not able to compete with those other global cities, the UK as a whole will suffer.”
Clashes with the mayor and reputation concerns
He is also fed up with the clashes between Sir Sadiq and President Trump. “You got two men who have got a vested political interest in rowing with each other,” he said. “What Donald Trump does is up to him. What the London Mayor is doing is damaging London's reputation.”
In particular, he is annoyed that many US citizens believe London is crime-ridden and dangerous and insists the city is by an “order of magnitude safer than any of those other big cities in the United States of America”.
“The fact that the world doesn't currently believe that, I think in large part, is a failure of the Mayor of London,” he said.
