{"id":133742,"date":"2024-09-13T11:02:11","date_gmt":"2024-09-13T11:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/13\/ive-been-too-diffident-about-my-achievements-james-cleverly\/"},"modified":"2024-09-13T11:02:12","modified_gmt":"2024-09-13T11:02:12","slug":"ive-been-too-diffident-about-my-achievements-james-cleverly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/13\/ive-been-too-diffident-about-my-achievements-james-cleverly\/","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;ve been too diffident about my achievements &#8211; James Cleverly"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/2a27\/live\/917d5880-712e-11ef-a321-235a0ab5ef76.jpg?resize=1024,576&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"I&#8217;ve been too diffident about my achievements &#8211; James Cleverly\" title=\"I&#8217;ve been too diffident about my achievements &#8211; James Cleverly\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Conservative leadership contender James Cleverly claims he has been &#8220;underestimated&#8221; throughout his political career because he has been too &#8220;diffident&#8221; about his achievements.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">The shadow home secretary told <!-- --><a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/p04z203l\" class=\"sc-c9299ecf-0 bZUiKB\" rel=\"noopener\">Political Thinking With Nick Robinson<!-- --><\/a> some of his colleagues &#8220;parade their accomplishments like peacock feathers&#8221;.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">But he added: &#8220;I have been a little less like that.&#8221;<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">He is now keen to trumpet his record as a political survivor who has held a series of senior roles including party chairman, foreign secretary and home secretary.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">&#8220;Either I am uniquely lucky or I am actually good at what I do,&#8221; he told Nick Robinson. <!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">&#8220;I am a bit fed up pretending that I am not good at what I do.&#8221;<!-- --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Cleverly&#8217;s three leadership rivals all have ministerial experience. <!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Robert Jenrick, a former immigration minister, currently has the most support from Conservative MPs, followed by former business seceretary Kemi Badenoch.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Cleverly is tied in third place with former security minister Tom Tugendhat after two rounds of voting by Tory MPs.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">The four contenders will make their case to replace Rishi Sunak as party leader at the Conservative conference in Birmingham at the end of this month.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">They will then be whittled down to two by Tory MPs, with the party membership getting the final say in a ballot.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">In a wide-ranging interview with Nick Robinson, Cleverly also spoke about his experiences of being mixed-race in 1970s South London, when National Front marches were taking place.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">&#8220;That was the backdrop of my childhood,&#8221; he said, but &#8220;colour and race&#8221; was &#8220;just not a thing&#8221; for his own children and their friends.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">&#8220;One of the things I love about this country and I think we underplay it, is that we have we have always been actually one of the most open and generous countries.&#8221;<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">But he also argued that the country had gone backwards when it came to integration. <!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">He said his mother, who came to the UK from West Africa in 1966 to work as an NHS midwife, &#8220;did not feel she had to integrate because for her, this was coming home&#8221;.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Because Sierra Leone was run as a British colony until 1961, Cleverly said his mother&#8217;s attitude to British institutions &#8220;and its rules came hard-coded when she arrived&#8221;.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">&#8220;We used to be really good at integration and we dropped the ball on that,&#8221; Cleverly said.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">The root of the problem lies in the inconsistent application of the UK&#8217;s laws, he claimed.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">&#8220;All institutions of the state should discharge their duty even-handedly and without fear or favour.&#8221;<!-- --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Despite this he said he argued modern Britain &#8221; is the best place in the world&#8221; to be &#8220;born in a minority group&#8221;.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Pointing to his own success in becoming Britain&#8217;s first black home secretary and foreign secretary, Cleverly said &#8220;there are more opportunities in British society that I think you would find in any other contemporary society&#8221;.<!-- --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c9848w0n4ydo\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Conservative leadership contender James Cleverly claims he has been &#8220;underestimated&#8221; throughout his political career because he has been too &#8220;diffident&#8221; about his achievements. The shadow home secretary told Political Thinking With Nick Robinson some of his colleagues &#8220;parade their accomplishments like peacock feathers&#8221;. But he added: &#8220;I have been a little less like that.&#8221; He [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/2a27\/live\/917d5880-712e-11ef-a321-235a0ab5ef76.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[603],"tags":[1777,10340,107248,19400,3594],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133742"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133742"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133744,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133742\/revisions\/133744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}