YouSaid · the spoken record

James Cleverly

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2026-06-14
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2026-06-14
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  1. “Someone in a serious position, a senior political figure, to say the appropriate response is rage, I don't think adds value. And I know that people will say, well, Vance said that as well, Lamy said that in the past. And I'm critical of everyone who says in a difficult situation, the best thing you can do is to be emotional rather than thoughtful. It's always, always, always the wrong response.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Victoria Columbier. There have been too many where people have been scared off doing the right things, they're worried about accusations of racism. For us to just ignore that. But the tone he's taken has made it harder to have those conversations because a lot of people who value are actually pretty good track record of race relations and integration, they have been dissuaded from entering into that conversation because he has amplified the polarization of the debate. And to add anger into the mix, we started off talking about our time in the military. And there are people who have been to far more dangerous places than I have whilst being in uniform or whatever. But you're always taught to think calmly as an officer. And that's not to be unemotional, but it's about not letting your emotions get the better of you. And for someone, a serious”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Very badly, very, very, very badly. The problem we now have got is there are some things that he was talking about which are important to discuss. Our public servants too scared of being accused of racism to do the right thing in some of those difficult judgment call situations. And I think there have been too many examples of where people, whether it's from the Manchester Arena bombings, whether it's from the”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “A big part, a big part in nation. Maybe not the majority, but a big part. And listening to minority voices is really important, particularly minority voices you disagree with. And I do think, again, I think that's an error that has been made by a number of political parties. I would say this when I think Labour worst offenders, listening to minority voices that they agree with, but not minority voices they disagree with. So we have to understand why a lot of people feel really, really uncomfortable. But if all you do is echo that discomfort, you're not serving the country. And as I say, those of us go into politics. We don't do it for the kudos. We don't do it for the money. We do it because we want to make the country a better place.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I think he would do the country an enormous amount of damage because that's what we're seeing happen at local government level because it's all performative. It's all feels. Go to that point I'm saying earlier about deeply concerned and why I hate it so viscerally as a phrase because it's all about the vibe. It's all about the feels. It's all about, are you angry about something? I'm angry about something. Let's be angry together. Sort it out. Not interested in that, mate. I just want to stir the pot and shake things up. That is not what public service is about. That's not what politics is about. You go to a doctor because you want to be made better. You don't go to a doctor so the doctor can just empathize with your particular pain. And the same is true of politics. Empathy is really important. It's one of the preconditions for a successful elections. But if that's all you got, if that's all you've got, if all you are is an echo chamber of the angst of your nation, then you are not...”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “No, it's not. No, look. And I do the terribly unfashionable thing as a politician, which is say that, of course, I'm, of course, I said I was speaking up in Stockton upon T on Friday night Friday night and I made the point that if there was a dating app, if there was a political equivalent of a dating app and the profile said I want to destroy you, I'm not sure that I would want to match up on that particular dating app. And he keeps saying over and over again, he hates us, he wants to destroy us. He's got this real vendetta because he thinks the Conservative Party undervalued him and mocked him and etc. Some of which may be true. I don't think that's, I don't think that's credible. But the direct answer is no, I wouldn't because either he would be the senior partner in a coalition and would be taking the country in a disastrous direction, or he would be the junior partner in a coalition, and I just don't think he would accept that. His ego wouldn't let him. And if he was the senior partner in a coalition,”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “But that is something that needs to be addressed. We are losing talent. We are losing overseas investment. Our reputation on the world stage is not as strong as it should be. And you can be as frustrated by this as you like. And I saw this as Foreign Secretary. The words UK, England and London are often used as interchangeable terms on the world stage. So if we want the UK as a nation to be on fire in a positive way, I mean like firing on all cylinders, London needs to work.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “So, the bottom line is that interrelationship is really, really key. I think the Conservatives understand that more than other political parties. Point one, point two. Do I want to be Mayor of London? It's a fascinating job. Obviously, I work with Boris for eight years whilst he was Mayor of London. You can get stuff done. I was born and brought up in London. My constituency is an hour's commute from Liverpool Street Station. When London does well, the country does well. And we can feel it in Braintree. And when London does badly, we can feel it in Braintree. And London is underperforming. And I know there's lots of misinformation and disinformation.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “So, why I'm a conservative? I'm a pragmatist. As I say, I have a family background in both public service and in commerce, and I think I understand, and I'm not unique about this, I understand the interrelationship between the two. I don't put one on a pedestal above the other. Public service, whether it's in the health service or the military, is not some higher calling to the people that wake up early, risk their own capital, invest their own time, work hard in order to turn a profit and employ people. One's not better than the other. It's a very well, you did your best when you copied us.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Hallucinate when it got pulled up on it, it lied about it, it might got pulled up on that, it lied again. And the thing is, of course, AI is trying to replicate humans because we've told it to replicate humans. And what it's doing is it's replicating our faults and frailties and then amplifying them. So we need to, you know, just like a very, very high speed vehicle, there is a steering wheel, but you get it wrong. You're driving at five miles an hour and you take a wrong turn, you bump into a tree. It's not nice, but it's not fatal. If you're in a Formula One car, fundamentally the same technology with so much more power, it's a massive problem. This is what AI does. All the things that we do well, it could do very, very well and very, very quickly, but we've got to find a way of how do we harvest the positives and mitigate the negatives. Because what we're not going to do is we're not going to turn it off. That's not a credible option.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “And in other ways, you look at if we had a time machine travel for 10 years, there will be lots of things which are very, very, very familiar that we thought would be transformed and trying to guess which one it's going to be is kind of almost impossible. There are some things that we know we need to be very, very careful of. AI hallucination is a massive problem. AI's ability to do the brute force attacks on digital security systems, right viruses, right penetration code is really, really worrying. AI's inability to recognize its own errors and to lie. There was something where some people were testing, I can't remember which one it was, but they were testing it. And not only did it lie, not only did it...”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Because the advocates of AI, I think, have probably got a bit of a blind spot to some of the risks, and the people who are fearful of AI have got a blind spot to the opportunities. And like everything boring, the truth will sit somewhere between the two. So you look at science fiction, you look at science fiction from the time we grew up. We're about the same kind of vintage. You look at science fiction from the time when we grew up. And it was like household robots and flying cars and that kind of stuff. No one had thought of the mobile phone and no one had thought that every single person in a developed country could have on-demand access to the entirety of human knowledge, but mainly spends time looking at cat videos and pornography. And we'll have the same with AI. I think in some areas we'll be much, much more transformational than we can get our heads around.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “And the stuff they were saying at the time, I was like, right, scribbling this down. I thought, I'm going to become our in-house expert on AI. And then something happened. I can't remember what happened, you know, some conflict. And I looked away and spent some months thinking about something else. And by the time I looked back, I was completely gone. And everything that I thought I knew and thought I understood had largely become obsolete. And I think that's one of the challenges. I think that politics, global politics is particularly ill-prepared to deal with both the opportunities and threats.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Yeah, I think it's because it is hard to understand. It's easy to understand a very, very, very superficial level. And if you want to just echo the same talking points as absolutely everybody else, then you can probably get away with it. You probably get away with it. But because it is so transformational and it is moving so very, very quickly, Be very, very easy to start putting policies in place which are obsolete long before they ever get through the parliamentary system. When I was foreign secretary, I chaired the first UN Security Council debate on the safety of AI from a geopolitical weapons management financial sector management. And we had a British expert and a Chinese expert, and they were absolutely fascinating.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Writing about her. So Susie's, and the reason I'm reliving this is because Susie's writing a book at the moment about her time being treated for and recovering from cancer. And it basing. 2022, so it gets from 2022 to the end of 2025. And so we're reliving this, and she's writing about what she was going through. She was saying, what were you doing at the time? I'm flicking back through my diary going, oh my God, I was doing this. And oh my God, I was doing that. So it's all painfully familiar.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “This is exactly the wrong kind of emergency for Boris. In the way that Ukraine was exactly the right kind of thing, COVID was exactly the wrong kind of thing. There were no inherently right answers. It was all very difficult. It was very technical. It required him to do things which he instinctively didn't want to do, like all the lockdowns really, really unlibertarian. He was quite a libertarian type person. All these things were at odds with his belief. And it just smashed him about and all this kind of stuff. And, you know, he's always had a degree and we can discuss how much of a degree, degree of personal ill discipline. We knew that when we as a party chose to make him prime minister, in many ways that was personal rather than professional, but those things blurred and the wheels came, all of which you can read in my wife's book that she's writing.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “So Boris could have been, again, and you're not going to agree with this, Boris could have been an amazing Prime Minister. Two things let him down. I think he had people around him who did not have his best interests at heart and thought they could use him as an avatar for their ambitions. So people have been doing it, Cummings and others, but mainly Cummings. People have been doing this throughout Boris's career. He got hit with the challenge of COVID, which was the...”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “It fell. I mean, I was stepping into one of the biggest jobs in British politics, and it was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. All the certainties, all the handrails, all the foundation stones that I thought were solid were wobbling. And it became clear, by the time I got back, and for the first time, just going into party conferences, it was really the first time I caught my breath. So that beginning part of October going into Conservative Party conference before I sexually for a month, that whole month had just been turbulence, total, absolute head spinning, turbulence. And then we're at party conference. And luckily, I was able to stand up and just give a speech on foreign affairs as foreign secretary and like, shit, keep my head below the parapet on that. But just it was impossible to understand what was going on.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “So, the big advantage I had was it all moved so quickly I was never really asked to do that. So day three in my job as Foreign Secretary, Her Late Majesty the Queen died, and we went straight into Operation London Bridge. We went straight from Operation London Bridge into the UN General Assembly, went straight from the UN General Assembly to Arba Shinzou's funeral, and I was flying back from the Far East as the wheels were falling off the British economy. So literally, I was like, wow, I still.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “So Rish, I think, could have been a great prime minister if the circumstances were different when he stepped in. I think we had lost the 24 election. I think a lot of people around him got very, very panicky. We made bad decisions through the campaign lead up to the campaign, which really, really didn't help. I think Liz became so driven by wanting to prove a point that she lost track of some of the fundamentals of politics. And what was the point? Well, the point she wanted to make is you've laughed at me my whole career, but look at now, I'm Prime Minister now, and I'm going to do the things that you told me were impossible. And she set about, and the thing with her, she did two things simultaneously, which were contradictory. One, she advocated a big reduction in taxation in order to get the economy rolling. And then at the same time, a massive, incredibly expensive fiscal support package. And you can't do both. You can either tax less and...”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Caught in tough stuff if need be. And if we are not willing or able to do that, then we are not going to be able to have any kind of sovereignty. But it really comes, it comes down to strong economic decisions, cheaper energy, because that fuels everything. We became wealthy and powerful and influential in the age of steam because we have first mover advantage on an energy source. And if we want to stay top table, we've got to understand. Particularly in the modern day and age, all comes down to energy policy, where labour in completely the wrong place.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “A top tier player. I think it can be done, but it's going to take some fundamental resets in things like our tax and regulatory system. We tax and regulate our businesses to such an extent. They can't grow. We punish growth when it happens. We're not investing in the right kind of defense. We're not taking a lot of things as seriously as we should. And I think these are recoverable because we're in the right time zone. We've got fantastic education system. We've got some very, very good technologists. London is the world's third largest AI centre. But we are going to have to do some big things differently if we are going to maintain that power. And really easy to talk about soft power. People think diplomacy is soft power. It's not. It's hard power. It's hard power with a smiley face and velvet gloves, but it is predicated on your ability to do difficulty.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “To the right priorities, I think our industrial base, you just mean heavy industry, but a lot of businesses, everything from the pottery to data centers requires a large amount of cheap and reliable energy. And we've drifted away from understanding that. And that's put us in a difficult place. We became reliant back from the EU accession countries back when Tony Blair was Prime Minister. We became overly reliant on relatively high skilled but relatively low paid labour. So we didn't invest enough in the kind of technologies that would increase productivity. And we over-relied on the post-Cold War peace dividend. And so there are lots of things there that we need to do to reestablish ourselves.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “So this all goes back to the fundamental, it's the economy stupid. Everything is dependent on a foundation stone of a healthy and vibrant economy. And our economy has grown too slowly. We are not the only ones, but our economy has grown too slowly. That has meant that there's less money to go around than some governments would like, and I think we have not applied the money we have had.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “I didn't do the reshuffle, but I don't think David was doing a good job as foreign secretary. I think he was overindexing for the US. I think he was overplaying his relationship with Vance, which has turned out not to be that useful. They had a relationship, but he's not really exercised much diplomatic leverage from that. And I also have pretty good authority because you never really step out of foreign affairs that he wasn't spreading the love widely enough.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “You can roll your eyes and sight all you like. But as I say, we're seeing a similar polarization of politics in countries that did not do a Brexit.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Look, I'm going to disagree. I'm going to disagree with you on the strategic intent there because I just don't, you are relitigating it. You are pointing out. Yeah, but the statistics...”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “That's the rule. I'll tell you something because I've got to vote at 10 o'clock. You've got enough time to agree on that.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “You're saying that as a statement, but the fact of figures, even the figures trying to look at the GDP graphs of the UK, of France, of Germany.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “To be true for labour as well. Yeah, absolutely. So it's something new. So the question is how you respond to that. It was interesting, again, in your question. For me, The fundamental question is Do you get elected to be elected or do you get elected to do things that you believe in? There is a real temptation to just try and be where the electorate seems to be in the moment. You go chasing after the votes.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “It's very brute. Well, it's happened to us in Essex. Essex County Council, which was a conservative run for decades. We've completely lost control. It was a reform run council. And for a lot of people, a lot of activists, a lot of councillors, it is a complete shock. It's an unprecedented shock. It's like nothing they've experienced before.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Disinformation factual errors. But the point I'm making is that the way this White House conducts itself is unprecedented. It is unprecedented.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “So I if I were to spend my entire time correcting things I disagree with online, I would get no work done. But it is. And when it was my job, when it was my job, I did highlight...”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Yeah. Once you start setting up it, and I disagree with it, I don't think it is accurate. I also don't think it is useful. I disagree with it fundamentally, but the point I'm saying is for us to turn around and say, oh, this is outrageous and they shouldn't do it. You point a finger at someone, you've got three fingers pointing back at yourself. And if we become uncritical, or if we don't analyze ourselves and understand what's happening and why, I think what was going wrong for us”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “No, no, we're not going to agree. The statistics, you can roll your eyes and sigh all you like. We're seeing a similar polarization of politics in countries that did not do a Brexit”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “How do we explain the fact that this bifurcation of politics, this polarization of politics is happening across matured democracies, including down in Australia and European countries? How do you factor or how do you explain the fact that our economic performance has largely tracked identically to the other major European economies, took a big dip during COVID and a slow recovery out of COVID? We're definitely not going to agree with the facts on that.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “I don't want to make this all about Brexit. Well, I know that's part of the problem. No, no. But I just lay these down, and we're not going to agree. So we can dance around this May pole over and over again, but we're not going to agree. But if your hypothesis was right,”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “So by polling numbers, the third of that Troika, it was not a Troika because they weren't working together, but the third of those names is currently leading the polls and doing well in the election. And your hypothesis is if we passionately denounced the delivery of a democratic mandate hard enough, then somehow Nigel Farage would do less.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “But so one of the points, but no, but one of the points is one of the points is I refuse to believe, I'm sorry, I refuse to believe that anyone honestly can go on that much honesty. From right over there To rise. Oh”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Well, hang on well, I'm not sure he would agree with me. I'm sure it did. And then very much in the Theresa May stable and then very much in the Boris stable. Then he wrote that joint letter with Oliver Dowd and Rishi Sunak saying Boris is the future. And so he's been the good soldier to every general placed ahead of him. And he just hasn't got where he thought he wanted to be. He saw Rishi becoming Prime Minister, Olive becoming Deputy Prime Minister, and him was like number two at the home office. And that's the way he kind of peaked. And I think he's very angry that he has done what he believes is being kind of a good and loyal. Member of Parliament”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “In very long since he has a But look, if you think from his point of view, he grew up in the Ken Clark stable and there's a long, I love Ken Clark. Lots of things I disagree with him about, but a titan of British politics. So he kind of grows there very much in line with the David Cameron modernisation project, very much in the slipstream of that agenda. Did it get him top tier status? No, it didn't.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Need to ask him, but I mean, for me, I think there's a lot of frustration there. I think he's been a good boy for his political career.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Oh, him claiming that she was all Pro BLM back in the day and she's contorted her position. I mean, like, talk about pick the wrong target. Kemi has been relentless in her opposition to identity politics about this division staff, about critical race theory, about Black Lives Matter as a political movement, and to try and suggest that she was playing Footsie with Black Lives Matter five, six years ago when it was Flavor of the Day, when they were, you know, Nadim Zahari was at a BLM conference. And he was talking about diversity quotas and this kind of thing. But how do they make such a fish on rolling rolls?”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “You get slagged off on social media. And, you know, if you're really, really lucky, you get some very lucrative book deals like you and your Bet Noir Boris Johnson, but most of us don't. So you've got to do what you believe to be right. And I don't believe Nadine believes what he says about Kemi. Mrs. Kemmy, if you've got to pick a conservative...”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “To really show your loyalty. I go shoot your old boss. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And this is what they're doing. And everyone can see that's what they're doing. And ultimately, and I don't know when, I mean, you ask the question I was meant to answer and I kind of slightly avoided, like, how do we deal with this? Don't do what you believe to be wrong. Starting point for a good life. Don't do something you fundamentally believe to be wrong, even if that thing is superficially popular because people do see through it. And if ultimately, even if they don't, even if ultimately, and was it all political careers end in failure, at some point in the future, when I get rid of this beard, I'm going to have to look at myself in the shaving mirror and ask, did I fundamentally do what I believe in or did I just do what I needed to do to get me elected? And if you can't say I did what I believed to be right, then frankly, what is the point? What's the point in getting involved in politics? The money ain't that great.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “Consciously burning burning boats, better metaphor, burning boats. You can never go back. You need to denounce your former party and your former colleagues. So this is a one-way valve. I think part of it's that. But the other part of it is ritual humiliation as some kind of purity test.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “I was thinking about this actually, and Danny, and you mentioned Danny Kruger. Danny wrote something. I can't remember exactly where it was. And he wrote something which I thought was a throwaway line for a little bit of rhetorical flourish, which was about conservatives that have done things wrong when they're in government, can get absolution from Nigel Farage as long as they were willing to basically prostrate themselves. And I thought it was a funny line. And Danny can be very good with words. And I thought it was a bit of a funny line. I now watch Nadim Sahawi lie knowingly on television. I watch Robert Genrick lie on television. I watch people that I liked and respected just mutate live on air in order to try and win the approval. And I realize it's penance. I think it's a combination of burning bridges.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “And perhaps, I'm not saying this is inevitable, but perhaps in order to do that, you need to say and potentially do things that you don't believe in, that you're uncomfortable with, that you're wrong. I think the public do spot it if you're not being honest with yourselves. But even if they don't, even if they don't, even if you con them for a little bit and you then get elected on what is a false prospectus and you kind of go, well, I've got myself elected, thumbs up job done. That's where things fall over. And we're seeing this now with reform where they have taken control of councils. It's been absolute car crash because Nigel Farage, I think his big motivation is to be able to say to people, you wrote me off and you were wrong. That's all he wants. And I have no doubt that if, and I don't think it's going to happen, but if he ever walked through the door of number 10, he would regard the job done as he crossed the door.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “The vote split very hard to the hard left and to the hard right. And that's being replicated across Europe. You see the French presidential elections, the last set and the set that are coming up, same phenomenon. So it's not unique to British politics. They're saying, oh, was it Liz? Was it Boris? Well, that wouldn't explain why it's happening in other European countries. And again, you see this in the States. Now, because of the way they're party branding works rather than their party system, people think of people describe President Trump as a Republican president, but he is from outwith the tradition of the U.S. Republican Party. So I don't think it's uniquely about us. That doesn't mean to say we can go, oh, it's not our fault, we could just move on. We do need to do something about this.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “For two passionate pro-Europeans, I worry about how little we look at European politics because we have now, we are now experiencing a phenomenon which we've seen in continental European politics over the last It's been building over the last decade, which is this real bifurcation of politics. You look at the last German elections. And because Delinka and AFD kind of counterbalanced each other, you end up with a sensible centerist dad kind of coalition. But the vote split.”

    2026-06-14 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 193. James Cleverly: Why Has There Been A Radical Shift On The Right? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source