Truss links should torpedo Cleverly’s bid for London mayor, says Tory rival

Former home secretary James Cleverly has too much baggage to win back London for the Tories because of his association with Liz Truss, the underdog for the Tory mayoral nomination has said. Festus Akinbusoye, 48, the former Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner and now London councillor, told The i Paper that the Conservatives need a “fresh face” in the capital “without links to the past” to end the party’s losing streak in London. The Tories – who have lost three consecutive mayoral elections to Labour’s Sadiq Khan – are currently in the process of deciding who will be their candidate for the 2028 race. Shorts So far, the declared contenders are Cleverly, Akinbusoye and Alex Challoner, a former Tory adviser who founded a public affairs firm. The party plans to create a shortlist of up to three names to be voted on by London members, with a candidate expected to be in place by the end of the year. As a former home and foreign secretary and MP of 11-years standing, Cleverly is the clear favourite for the nomination. Cleverly ‘tarnished by his association with Truss’ However, in an interview with The i Paper, Akinbusoye suggested that the Braintree MP was tarnished by his association with Truss. When The i Paper put to Akinbusoye that Cleverly had occupied two great offices of state, he replied: “To which prime ministers?” Cleverly was appointed foreign secretary by Truss – whom he backed to be prime minister in the 2022 Tory leadership contest – but then retained in the post by Rishi Sunak when he took over after the disastrous mini-budget. Akinbusoye said: “I am unencumbered by the past 14 years. I don’t have that bag to carry.” Arguing that Cleverly – whom he referred to as “the other guy” – would be held back by his record in government, he said: “Look, ultimately the Conservative Party’s got to decide: do we want a candidate for the Conservative Party? Or do we want a candidate for London? “Do [we] want a candidate that speaks to London, that speaks to the breadth of support we need to get both in and out of London, or one that just speaks to Conservative Party members? “I know which one I would go.” He also claimed he could follow other former Tory underdogs in pulling off an upset. “So was David Cameron [the underdog]… so was Margaret Thatcher,” he said. “I could even go across the Atlantic and say so was [New York City mayor Zohran] Mamdani, right, even though I do not agree with his politics at all.” Akinbusoye, who was born in Nigeria and moved to the UK at the age of 13, served as Britain’s first Black police and crime commissioner from 2021 to 2024. He was the Conservative candidate in the 2023 Mid Bedfordshire by-election sparked by Nadine Dorries’ resignation as an MP, but was beaten by Labour’s Alistair Strathern. In this year’s local elections he was elected to Westminster City Council, helping the Tories to wrest back control of the flagship council from Labour. Akinbusoye: ‘I would be more in touch with Londoners’ Akinbusoye suggested that compared to Cleverly he would be more in touch with the lives of ordinary Londoners dealing with issues such as cost of living pressures and unaffordable housing. “I’m still very much in the world where these guys live, as opposed to the worlds of those who’ve been in politics for decades,” he said. Growing up in London, he had “felt the pain and the pressures that many Londoners face”, including moving “from one temporary accommodation to another” during his teens. Later, he set up a security business for cinemas from his father’s council flat, but still ended up being priced out of the capital altogether by his early twenties. “When I moved out of my house, my dad’s council flat in Canning Town, I had about four employees in my business. I could not afford a place to rent let alone buy,” he said. Promising to “get homes built in London” if he becomes mayor, he said: “Who better to fix it than someone who’s lived it?” Conservative Party candidate Festus Akinbusoye shakes hands with Labour Party candidate Alistair Strathern on stage ahead of the result in the Mid-Bedfordshire Parliamentary by-election in 2023 (Photo: AFP) As someone who was born abroad, Akinbusoye hit out at Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf for recent comments implying that British citizens born in other countries were suspect when running for elected office. Yusuf, Restore’s home affairs spokesman, caused a storm last month when he posted on X about Labour’s candidate in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, Sagal Abdi-Wali, a former child refugee from Somalia. Yusuf had said: “The frontrunner being foisted on the people of Holborn by Labour to replace the former prime minister Keir Starmer in our parliament was born in Somalia. Do you understand what’s happening?” Akinbusoye said it was “extraordinary” that Yusuf made the remarks given he is the son of Sri Lankan immigrants to Britain. “If he had his way. I will never hold a public office in Britain,” he said. “I don’t believe the vast majority of British people think that way, believe that way, or support that kind of thinking. If you are willing to uphold British values, if you’re willing to support and lift Britain, and if you want what is best for Britain, I think the vast majority of British people will be on your side.” He also accused Reform and the party’s mayoral candidate, Laila Cunningham, of talking down the capital with past comments comparing it to crime-riddled American cities like Chicago. “I find it extraordinary that people who want to represent a place spend so much of their time talking down the place they want to represent,” he said. As a contender for the Tory mayoral nomination, Akinbusoye is evidently trying to strike a balance of criticising Labour’s stewardship of London without “talking down” the city. “If you go to any part of London, you see people just getting on with their lives, having fun, you know, having a good time,” he said. “I think London is doing well despite the failures of City Hall, and what I want to do is just move things in the right direction.” Law and order at the centre of Akinbusoye’s pitch Given his background, it is no surprise that law and order is at the centre of his pitch. Akinbusoye said he had experienced the full gamut of policing, from being stopped and searched “several times” by the Metropolitan Police while growing up, to overseeing the Bedfordshire force as police and crime commissioner. He vowed to reverse a decline in Met numbers by boosting retention. “You can’t police effectively a growing city with a shrinking police force,” he said. “It does not make sense.” As home secretary in 2023, Cleverly was forced to apologise for making an “ironic joke” about spiking his wife’s drink. Asked about the controversy, Akinbusoye said: “He’s made his public statements about that, and it would be unfair of me to go further into his particular statements. But the issue of violence against women and girls is something that I take very seriously. I used a lot of the funding that was available to me as Politic and Crime Commissioner to invest in support for survivors and victims.” He added: “It’s something I take very, very seriously, and it’s not a laughing matter.” Akinbusoye said that if the Conservatives did manage to win London in 2028, it would boost the party at national level and act as a springboard for the next general election – assuming Andy Burnham sticks to his word and calls one in 2029. “The mayoral election is not just about the mayoral election, it’s also about the general election,” he said.