My blog

Tag: political careers

  • Opinion: James Cleverly, like Sunak after losing to Truss, will be back

    Christopher Jackson argues that James Cleverly isn’t done yet

     

    Sometimes it matters hugely how you lose. “We didn’t do it,” said James Cleverly at the low point in his career on Wednesday just after finding out he had failed in his bid to be leader of the Conservative Party.

    I was very struck by the nature of this video. It exuded confidence and, in fact, leadership. How was he able to do this? Although Cleverly admitted that it was disappointing for him personally, one had a sense in his concession video and throughout his leadership campaign that he wasn’t running solely out of personal motivation.

    Speaking to a Finito event last month, he spoke movingly about his love of the Conservative Party, and recalled staying up late as a young man on General Election night, going through the constituency results. His immediate thought after losing this week was to remind the Party that ‘we’re all Conservatives’.

     

    This was gracious in the same way that Sunak’s concession to Sir Keir Starmer was gracious. It might seem a small thing, but this sort of generosity in defeat is the mark of true leadership.

     

    There was no hubris involved incidentally in Cleverly’s defeat, contrary to bogus media speculation. Speaking to members of his team, the instructions were quite clear on Wednesday: all the MPs who wanted Cleverly as leader were instructed in no uncertain terms to vote for him.

     

    With surreptitious stupidity, a handful of MPs took the matter into their own hands, with the consequence that the membership will now not have a centrist candidate to vote for.

     

    In the pub afterwards, Cleverly was reportedly somewhat subdued following the defeat – as who wouldn’t be. But campaign members said he gave each a big hug – as is his style – and thanked them meaningfully for their work.

     

    Another campaign staff member recalled: “He is always like this. He always knows what to do – and power never changed him.” To rise so high, and to retain this core decency is a rare achievement – it is, in fact, worth more than the Conservative leadership, since it is to do with the inner being.

     

    Another recalled starting out as a young political operative. She wrote hundreds of emails to MPs and politicians. Only one replied: James Cleverly.

     

    I once asked the wonderful former Skills minister Rob Halfon which members of the then Cabinet were nice to their staff. He didn’t miss a beat in naming Cleverly and Mel Stride. It is unfortunate that the Conservative MPs, shark-like as always, failed to represent these two bastions of civility in the last two.

     

    Sharks, of course, are unable to swim backwards, and I think there is now something of this trait about the Conservatives. They are rushing forwards on one-dimensional momentum, supposedly for a brilliant kill.

     

    Will they hit the rocks? It seems more than possible. If they do, there seems a real possibility they’ll turn to Cleverly, just as they turned back to Sunak after the Truss fiasco. A list of history’s victors is also a list of those who were at one time or another good losers.

     

    Either way, my suspicion is that Cleverly’s stature has risen irreversibly as a result of the past few weeks.

     

    It was Theresa May who spoke of the Conservatives as the Nasty Party, and eventually became Prime Minister. If the British public were to decide that this new Conservative Party is a trifle abnormal, might not even knuckle-headed Conservative MPs revert to the man who told them so memorably to be normal all along?

     

    Similar articles:

     

    Last Chance Saloon: Can Rishi Sunak win the next election?

  • Review: Barack Obama’s The Promised Land

    Iris Spark asks what the 46th President of the United States can learn from the 44th –  and what can we all learn from the greatest of all presidential memoirs

    With the arrival around a year of ago of Joe Biden in the White House, there have now been 46 people who have risen to become President of the United States during America’s 250 year history. It’s only rarely that someone with the sensibility of a writer assumes the highest office in the land.

    It’s easy to see why this might be so. On the face of it, the pressure and flux of the job would appear to argue against anyone with a penchant for the sedentary life taking it on. Barack Obama did. It is one of the central facts of his life that he felt the need to. That means that in The Promised Land, the 768-page memoir we have a unique document, which has much to teach us about politics – and about Biden’s America.

    But the value of the memoir is still greater than that. In reality, things happen so quickly in the Oval Office, and with such drama, that we find in the pages of Obama’s book a condensed primer on human nature; it is a book so good it has much to teach us all.

    The former president’s eye for detail means that the reader is given a unique sense of the White House as a working environment. Here, for instance, is the man charged with a thousand problems, taking time to notice the gardeners at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:

    They were men of few words; even with one another they made their points with a gesture or a nod, each of them focused on his individual task but all of them moving with synchronised grace.

    So the man of many words notes straightaway the men of few. This is a book about many kinds of work – it is about the job of being president – and therefore being a leader, and it is also about preserving the dignity of work for as many Americans as possible in the face of the 2008 financial crisis. But every word reminds of you of his writer’s vocation: in bearing witness to his experience, he hopes to redeem his presidency of its faults, and to comprehend – even compensate for – his errors.

    It might be that he has less to redeem, in the wake of Biden’s win, than if we were now inhabiting the first months of Donald Trump’s second term. Biden is a different kind of president to Obama, but he campaigned on the back of Obama nostalgia, and at the policy level, though he is sometimes tugged to the left of the 44th president, Biden is pledged to a kind of Obama-ism.

    But what American president doesn’t have regrets, if only because it is a position of such power that any ugliness in the planet is sometimes held to be their fault. And so this is a redemptive book, even if Obama can hardly think of anything he could have done differently.

    But Obama, to risk stating the obvious, is more than a writer. In The Promised Land, even as he is observing with the writer half of his brain, we watch him operating in the real world. It is a rare skill. What can we learn from it?

    Obama’s book begins with a potted description of his early life, and it’s distinct from the sweep of his early masterpiece Dreams from My Father. It is always interesting to read of the early lives of presidents, or figures who we know shall prove historic, since we can see how in retrospect so much of what happened was to their advantage.

    Interestingly, Obama’s story is also marked by a strong counter-intuitive streak. At one point, having described his ascent to be the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review (‘enthusiasm makes up for a whole host of deficiencies’), we discover his contrarian spirit, which may be more marked in a man who has become famous as a consensus politician than we might realise:

    Job offers arrived from around the country, and it was assumed that my path was now charted, just as it had been for my predecessors at the Law Review: I’d clerk for a Supreme Court justice, work for a top law firm or the Office of the United States Attorney…It was heady stuff. The only person who questioned this smooth path of ascent seemed to be me.

    It’s a fascinating career progression: as the world now knows, there was a brief accommodation with corporate America when he trained at Sidley Austin a big Chicago law firm where he met Michelle Robinson. While working as a civil rights attorney, he saw an opening in local politics and rose through the state legislature – via a book deal – to Congress and then the presidency.

    What comes across is that it’s not enough to know what you want to do – you have to be on the lookout for opportunity, to react to the contingencies of the world. With Obama, we can see that he retained throughout crucial flexibility; that the urge to grow was correctly traversed alongside a need to navigate the world. Obama sought experience, but never tied himself to it, and always allowed life to teach him what to do.

    What is remarkable about Obama’s rise to the presidency is how frictionless it seems – how, once he had chosen politics, and made that ground secure, he was able to move upwards with very little acting against his ascent. The reader who knows about Obama’s story might wince at one point, when he writes of his wedding to Michelle on October 3rd, 1992: ‘The service was officiated by the church’s pastor, Reverent Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’ That association would not turn out well for Obama, when on March 13th 2008, Obama woke to find videos of Wright’s inflammatory rhetoric playing on repeat across the live media. Some choice excerpts included him calling America, ‘the USA of KKK’, and his saying, ‘Not God bless America. God damn America.’

    It was the only moment when, the reader feels, Obama might really have lost the 2008 election; it was possible that with poor handling, he might either have found himself defeated by Hillary Clinton to the Democratic nomination, or perhaps that he might have held on but found the Reverent Wright’s remarks a millstone around his neck in the subsequent general election battle against John McCain. ‘It felt as if a torpedo had blown through our hull.’

    Obama did two things from there which are worth noting. In the first place, he shouldered responsibility: ‘I may not have been in church for any of the sermons in question or heard Reverend Wright use such explosive language. But I knew all too well the occasional spasms of anger within the Black community – my community – that Reverend Wright was channelling.’ It might be too simplistic to state that Obama strikes one as an honest person – and in fact, his time in office was marked by an almost total absence of scandal. But perhaps more important was his realisation of the importance of the moment: ‘Anyway it was too late. And while there are moments in politics, as in life, when avoidance, if not retreat, is the better part of valour, there are other times when the only option is to steel yourself and go for broke.’

    But all this was heading, as we know towards the presidency, and of course the book pivots there, just as his life altered. Obama is soon in receipt of his daily briefing and problems rush his way, anxious to be solved: there is the fact of the global economy crashing; the healthcare system he has promised to fix; the immigration system which needs absolute overhaul – and perhaps above all, a climate which needed fixing. Obama took a number of decisions. The first was to prioritise the economy; the second was to pursue sweeping healthcare legislation.

    The book is remarkable for the detailed but enjoyable way in which he describes each of these problems. Soon a pattern emerges. We repeatedly find Obama making sure he makes some progress (Obamacare, the size of the rescue package following the 2007-8 financial crisis), sometimes irritating those would desire bigger or more progressive legislation.

    His time in the White House shows a classic case of a toxic work environment and how we react to toxicity in our midst. The Republicans refused to work with him throughout his two terms, but Obama rose above it rarely stooping to their level. This approach was encapsulated by Michelle Obama’s dictum: ‘When they go low, we go high.’

    It is an excellent book, but we shall find out if it’s a great one when the next volume is published. That’s because in that volume he will have to write the words he never wanted nor expected to write: Enter Donald Trump…

  • Sir David Amess showed why politics can be a meaningful career

    By Finito World

    Everyone at Finito has been saddened by the senseless murder of Sir David Amess MP.

    All accounts agree that he was a kind and gentle soul, who used his position in Parliament to promote animal welfare, his campaign for his beloved Southend to be recognised as a city, and to argue for a permanent public memorial to Dame Vera Lynn. In the dog-eat-dog world of Westminster, there was something innocent about him – he seemed perhaps of another time, and to hark back to older traditions.

    Amess represented the antithesis of the here-today-gone-tomorrow nature of British politics. He eschewed the drama of resignation and appointment, and all the talk of who’s-up-and-who’s down which so delights the mainstream media. He quietly got on with it.

    A typical Cabinet reshuffle, like the one Boris Johnson conducted in the autumn, showed us what Amess was not. It would have been unseemly to Amess to be caught up in the speculation, and even the indignity, of the careerist side of politics.

    Sir David Amess preferred staying power to power itself, and carried himself throughout his remarkable life with a quiet diligence. He aimed to make a difference by dedication and hard work, preferring that unsung progress to the pomp and circumstance of power. It’s true he had his high-profile moments, especially winning his seat in the close 1992 General Election, when he became an emblem of the Conservative Party’s surprise win.

    But more generally, he worked tirelessly – not for a Cabinet position – but for the privilege of serving his constituents. It was this noble task which he died doing.

    Young people are therefore shown two versions of what being in politics entails. It can be carried out at the highest level, amid the Shakespearean drama of the acquisition and loss of power. Writing for the BBC of the reshuffle, political editor Laura Kuenssberg remarked: “With no one strong ideology other than a desire to win, it begs the question of what it’s all really for.”

    In Amess’ death we had the answer. Politics is about helping others, on the back of having been elected to do so; it is about minding whether your community is improving or not; and then, if you have time leftover, it is about advancing the issues which you believe in. At its core, politics should be about making people happier – or at least, trying to do so.

    At Finito, we have many students who ask for help in their political careers. We would always hope that this route is embarked on with a commitment to principle. “Those are my principles and if you don’t like them – I have others,” as Groucho Marx once joked. In fact, a firm commitment to bettering the lives of others is the only thing which makes the uncertainty – and now the danger – of top level politics bearable. 

    It is this which we mourn when it comes to the loss of Sir David Amess. After his death, it might be said that only the most dedicated public servants will now put themselves forward for the job. Its dangers are all too plain.

    There is a world of difference between success which is meaningfully tethered to some good, and success which opens up only onto itself. If you pursue the former you can’t fail; if you pursue the latter, failure is inevitable, because it will all have been for nothing in the end anyway.

    Sir David Amess’ life, though it ended brutally, could never have its meaning taken from it. In fact, its value was increased, held in sharp relief by the appalling circumstances of his murder. Rest in peace, David.

  • The Importance of Principle: lessons from a brutal reshuffle

    The Importance of Principle: lessons from a brutal reshuffle

    by Finito World

    There is nothing, you might think, particularly edifying about a reshuffle like the one Prime Minister Boris Johnson conducted yesterday. We experience all the hoohah and fandango of politics, knowing that this episode too shall soon be in the past. Who in a few months time will be able to recall how Dominic Raab made way for Liz Truss as foreign secretary (though not before securing the dubious bauble of Deputy Prime Minister)? Who but a few scarred parents will remember how Gavin Williamson was moved for Nadhim Zahawi?

    It was an image of the here-today-gone-tomorrow nature of British politics. Writing for the BBC, political editor Laura Kuenssberg remarked: “With no one strong ideology other than a desire to win, it begs the question of what it’s all really for.” Of course, success always has a certain sense of being for its own sake. It must be admitted that there is a kind of confusion at the edge of life, as to what any of it means.

    And yet Kuenssberg has a point. There is something befuddling about the British system. Zahawi had spent 2021 delivering a successful vaccine rollout programme and acquiring knowledge in that area; overnight he is asked to master the complexities of the British education system – but more than that, to run it. Likewise, Steve Barclay, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and on the eve of the autumn Spending Review, was moved to be Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Will he maintain a hand in the process he has presumably spent some time planning? His new duties are likely too onerous for that.

    The necessity of the political moment can be exciting; it has the flavour of Shakespearean drama. Many pundits, swept along by the excitement of watching it unfold at close quarters, add to the giddiness by reaching for the most theatrical language imaginable. We hear of a Night of the Long Knives, and a ‘purge of the wets’, when what we are witnessing is more mundane than our news media would allow us to admit.

    But as much as there is thrill here, it also opens up onto a problem which reaches into the heart of policy-making. Limited staying power is also in evidence at the civil service. Ewart Keep, a Professor at Oxford University, explains a problem at the Department for Education: “Every time you turn up there for a meeting it’s a room full of people who can’t remember the last meeting,” he tells us. It’s this lack of long-term thinking which is worrying. Compare this to the single-minded focus required to succeed in business and it’s clear why we sometimes find ourselves lamenting our inability to plan for the future.

    And if you ever attend a fund-raising dinner you’ll see these different mindsets dramatised. Donors who have seen many prime ministers come and go sit back, knowing that they’ll attend the next dinner no matter who the prime minister is. Meanwhile ministers and advisors move around the room with an energy which feels temporary. They might own this moment, but will they even experience this room next year? And if that’s the case, are they really so powerful in the present as they seem to think?

    Who’d be in politics? A successful business achieves lasting change in a way which is getting harder and harder to come by in Westminster. At Finito, we have many students whom we are happy to help in their political careers, but we would always hope that this route is embarked on with a commitment to principle. “Those are my principles and if you don’t like them – I have others,” as Groucho Marx once joked. In fact, a firm commitment to bettering the lives of others is the only thing which makes the uncertainty of top politics bearable.

    So yesterday’s reshuffle is a reminder of the hurdy-gurdy nature of politics. This is theatre, and as Sir David Lidington once told us, there’s a possibility you’ll be ‘pelted with tomatoes’ at the end of it, as Robert Jenrick , Robert Buckland, Raab and Williamson all were yesterday.

    If you’re thinking of politics, be sure you don’t want to do something else. Certainly, there is world of difference between success which is meaningfully tethered to some good, and success which opens up only onto itself. If you pursue the former you can’t fail; if you pursue the latter, failure is inevitable, because it will all have been for nothing in the end anyway. That was the lesson of Johnson’s reshuffle, and it wasn’t a pretty one.