Robert Jenrick is once again top of the pile in ConservativeHome’s shadow cabinet league table. He scored +70.4, miles ahead of Mel Stride and Chris Philp who share second place at +41.5. Jenrick is now maintaining a comfortable lead month after month…
Kemi Badenoch is seeing a Lazarus-like resurrection, soaring from a flat 0.0 (or net zero) in May to +19.4 this month. She is now in fifth place, sandwiched between Claire Coutinho and Andrew Griffith…
James Cleverly makes his first appearance on the list since his appointment as shadow housing secretary. He scored +14.7, while Neil O’Brien debuts at +9.0. Commiserations to shadow transport secretary Richard Holden, who came in dead last at -14.9. There’s always next time…
Braintree Conservatives spent the weekend campaigning against the construction of a ‘mega prison’ at RAF Wethersfield, with constituency MP James Cleverly spotted sharing the below leaflet yesterday:
“Only the Conservatives say no to a prison at Wethersfield“… apart from the Leader of the Conservative Party. Just six weeks ago, Kemi Badenoch called for just that. Here’s what she said about that exact site on 30 June…
“I know many people in the area did not necessarily want a prison, but the people in the surrounding area of Essex did want one and we have to do the right thing… We need more prison places. I stood on a manifesto to deliver that.”
Tanks on the lawn…
After media picked up on James Cleverly’s refusal to repeat Badenoch’s statement that she is “increasingly of the view” the UK will have to leave the ECHR, he told GB News that there was no difference in their lines:
“If you’re going to quote me and Kemi, you need to actually quote me and Kemi rather than create this narrative of a divide… if the ECHR stops us doing what we have to do, we of course have got to look at how we might leave the ECHR and the process for doing that.”
On Cleverly’s first morning round back on the Tory front bench the new Shadow Housing Secretary has refused to back his party leader’s stated position on the ECHR. Who could have seen this coming?
Badenoch said at the beginning of June that she was “increasingly of the view” that the UK should leave the convention. Cleverly declined to back that on the Today Programme:
“Well, she’s commissioned a review by the Shadow Attorney General and it’s it’s right that we look at this… I completely understand her position on that… What I’m saying is she has commissioned a review and I’m going to wait to see… I’ve said what I believe.“
Pressed numerous times Cleverly repeated his previous claim that “leaving the European Convention on Human Rights will not necessarily be a silver bullet and we need to look at the wider implications… If the review sets out how we can make that work, then of course that becomes party policy. I will completely understand that and I will abide by that.”
Cleverly has been strident in his opposition to an ECHR withdrawal. Contrary lines already springing up in Badenoch’s reshuffled team…
Dear Co-conspirators,
On Wednesday night co-conspirators, friends, politicians and the best of the Westminster media pack gathered in Pall Mall for Guido’s twentieth anniversary dinner celebration.
As you would expect from a Guido party the booze flowed freely – for once however I was stone cold sober because I was going to deliver a speech (see below) which I did not want to stumble over. After six general elections, three referendums, eight Prime Ministers and having now even seen off my fourth Spectator editor, I am finally logging off the blog. If a week is a long time in politics, 20 years is an eternity.
Counting my mis-spent youth in student politics, apart from a foray in the City, politics has been my life for four decades. It remains to be seen how easy it will be to detox after being at the centre of things in SW1 for so long. This exit has been planned for some time and I am happy to say that unlike the original Guido Fawkes, I got to choose the time and manner of my ending. I leave the Guido Fawkes Organisation in the good hands of Ross Kempsell, one of the smartest operators in the game and a former Guido reporter from way back in 2017. The team is strong with now seasoned news editor Max Young and Eleanor Wheatley as our senior reporter. There is as ever another who shall remain nameless for now – because we always like to have someone who can do undercover work at Guido. My greatest pride and joy over the years has been to see young people who cut their teeth in the Guido newsroom go on to have even more success in the media. It gives me a sense of avuncular pride to see them all prosper. The time is right for me to stand down not least because as I have got older the newest intake of MPs has got younger and the SpAds even younger still, drinking in Westminster bars with them has become tougher and the recovery time much longer.
On a personal level twenty years of 24/7 focus on SW1 politics has been all consuming. There are hundreds of books that have gone unread because I have been too busy scrolling through tweets – an addiction I plan to beat.
Dear readers I want to thank you co-conspirators for everything, the tips, the fun, the exchanges, no doubt you’ll make your views known, as ever, in the comments. You made Guido Fawkes, I can not thank you all enough.
Thanks to GB News here are all the speeches from the night. First up was Harry Cole, the first ever employee of the Guido Fawkes Organisation and now the political editor of The Sun:
Next was my friend and former blogging rival James Cleverly:
Thanks to a few hours of coaching from the legendary speech crafter Peter Botting I think my speech went well:
My successor Ross Kempsell said some nice things:
You are in the good hands of Publisher Ross Kempsell…
Paul Staines
James Cleverly has ruled out serving in the Shadow Cabinet under the next Tory leader. He told the FT: “I’m not particularly in the mood to be boxed back into a narrow band again.” On a future leadership bid or even a London mayoral run, he replied: “I’m not going to rule anything in or anything out.” Leaving the door open…
Starmer said to Robert Peston this afternoon:
“I’m fed up with the fact that families across the country see their bills go up and down on energy businesses bills go up and down on energy because of the actions of Putin or Trump across the world.”
