‘Stop the boats’ slogan was error, James Cleverly tells Tory activists

A minister throughout the last parliament, Cleverly was highly critical of the Conservative government’s response to the Covid pandemic, calling it the worst thing it did.

“Lockdowns were wrong, we got it badly, badly, badly wrong,” he said.

The “whole world was scared”, but “we turned into all the things that I thought perhaps we could never become”, he added.

Cleverly argued the UK went from being a “freedom-loving nation” to “snooping on our neighbours, dobbing in our friends and cancelling Christmas”.

“We deified certain experts” and epidemiological ones “became gods among gods”, while experts on domestic abuse, children’s mental health and the economy were “relegated” in importance, he added.

“Let’s never make that error again,” he said.

He put part of the blame for the Tories’ election defeat on the tone of its message to the country, which he likened to “nails down a blackboard”.

“We were harsh and shrill, and not nice”, he added, arguing that this resulted in many previous Conservative voters backing the Liberal Democrats or staying at home.

He also said his party needed to talk less and deliver more.

“Delivery will win us back voters from Reform. Tonal change will win us back voters from the Lib Dems and those who stayed at home.”

Earlier, Cleverly told a different fringe event the party had to change not only its tone but also its behaviour to improve its appeal to younger people and women.

Years of infighting and “backstabbing” had alienated many in those sections of the electorate, he said.