BREAKING: James Cleverly QUITS Shadow Cabinet to run against Sadiq Khan for London mayor

I'm bringing you some breaking news. The former Home Secretary James Cleverley has quit his shadow cabinet position in a bid to run for Mayor of London. In an opinion piece published in the Times, James Cleverley has written Andy Burnham treats London as a cash cow, somewhat attacks, regulates, raid and blame. His government has taken hundreds of millions of pounds from local council budgets and he went on to take a stab at his rivals, simply saying other parties simply amplify every criticism of the capital, talking it down without offering either a credible plan or showing any real desire to make things better. Really? Well, joining me now is Reform UK's 2028 London Mayoral candidate Leila Cunningham and the former Labour Party adviser Paul Richards. Leila, have you heard what he said? It's interesting that he says I'm talking it down because if you don't admit there's a problem then you don't fix it. So is he going to be another Sadiq Khan that just ignores what's going on on our streets and just says it's the safest it's ever been? But I want to say welcome to the race, James. He keeps saying that he can beat Labour. According to the latest poll, he's going to have to try and beat me first. And I'm not really worried about James because Londoners have had a government that James was in for the past 14 years. I don't think they want the same and, you know, it's interesting because if Khan runs, it will be two career politicians running against an outsider who is not one. But might James Cleverley end up splitting the right vote? Because if he splits the right, then it could make it a lot harder for you to win. Yeah, I mean, potentially, you know, you could also see that the Greens are splitting the left vote. But perhaps, you know, the Greens are dying a painful death at the minute. A well-deserved political death. I mean, for sure, well-deserved. But I just don't think Londoners are going to look to a former Home Secretary, a former cabinet member, a former person who ran for leader of the Conservative Party as the answer for London right now. But he's also said that you're talking it down, but then he's gone on to say without offering either a credible plan or showing any real desire to make things better. It's interesting because I think he's been the MP for Essex, I don't know where he's been for the past decade. I was a senior Crown Prosecutor in London and I have been prosecuting criminals across our streets. I know exactly what needs to be done, I've got a credible plan. Perhaps he should follow me on social media and he'll get to know it. It does feel that, I think that at the end there, without, you know, showing any real desire, I don't think that's, I don't think that's fair in particular to you because I've seen how passionate you are about London. Well, also it's my home, I was born and raised here, my kids, you know, I'm raising six children they've all been a victim of crime, you know, I've been a victim of crime. It's my home, of course I have a desire to fix it, why wouldn't I? Even if I wasn't running for Mayor. Yeah. Using the internet without a VPN, a virtual private network, is a bit like taking to the road without car insurance. All it takes is one unlucky moment to cost you a lot of cash. This video's sponsor is Private Internet Access. They are the VPN to help keep you safe. Click the link in the description below to find out why over 30 million people have downloaded PIA to protect themselves online. A virtual private network is an app that hides your IP address and helps keep your data private. When you're browsing the internet at home, you give up a large amount of data to businesses, to shops, and indeed to social media giants too. 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Also, there's a 30-day money-back guarantee too. Visit piavpn.com forward slash gbnews to start protecting yourself digitally today. So your thoughts on this? Well, first of all, let's not get ahead of ourselves. First of all, he's just declaring he would like to be the Conservative candidate. And I think he's probably had his hand forced by Kemi's reshuffle of her Shadow Cabinet, which is coming in the next few hours, maybe Monday, Tuesday. So maybe he was tipped off that he wasn't going to do very well out of that, or maybe he wanted to get out for Monday. I don't know. But he's announcing this. I can't believe there aren't other senior Conservatives, perhaps cleaner skins, you know, not with all of the record that will hang around his neck like an albatross of being in government, as Leila says. So I can't believe there aren't, you know, newer, fresher London-based Conservatives that would want to throw their hat in the ring. Because he's Essex-based. Well, Braintree is Essex. It is. And it's not that bit of Essex that looks like London. It's not. No, it's not London. It's a market town. It's proper. It's even further beyond Chelmsford. Correct. And it used to be a Labour seat as well in 1997 and 2001. So it's a bit of a weathervane seat. Anyway, so yeah, he's not a London-based person. He would say, oh, yes, but I'm, you know, from London and I represented bits of London on the GLA, etc. I'm not his spokesperson. I'm just enjoying the fun of watching this play out. But I think that's one of the things that precipitated this was the reshuffle. And then presumably the Conservative Party in London is going to have to have some sort of vote of its members, isn't it, to decide who they want to be the candidate. Anyway, Labour is untroubled by this as much as Leila is saying, welcome to the fight. You know, great. Watch you all play this out. And don't forget also, the election isn't until 2028. So a lot can happen between now and then. I've also had a few messages from the Chagossians, you know. They are mobilising as we speak because he'll betray London as he betrayed them. Well, I mean, you know, this is a situation he did put himself in on that one. But as a London mayor, some people might say that he would actually be potentially a good London mayor. He's got quite a lot of charisma. He has made some very good speeches where he's, you know, he sounded very credible in terms of potentially leading the Conservative Party. There are those who would say that actually it is good to have some decent opportunities to vote for different people, some good opponents. London deserves the very best. Yeah. And I say, welcome to the race. It's too important a city not to have a good competition. Well, that is definitely true. But he's not a campaigner. He's not flamboyant like Boris was or some of the other candidates. He's a very good speaker. Is he? I don't think that's the thing he's going to be tested on, though, to be honest. I think, you know, it is a mayoralty, not an MP, not a cabinet minister. And I'm not sure his skill set and his experience is quite right for that. I think he'll be tested also, you know, what he's achieved or what he hasn't achieved in government, what part of a government he was with. Well, of course. If he ends up being the Conservative candidate, I can tell you the Labour candidate is going to be going on about his record for the next two years. So will we. And there's a lot to go on. Now, he's made some comments about Andy Burnham. He said Andy Burnham treats London as a cash cow, someone to tax, regulate and lay blame, raid and lay blame. How does Andy Burnham regulate or single out London for regulation? I don't think that's true. You don't think so? Well, I mean, I think perhaps perhaps you can look at the Conservative party that has laid on so much regulation on planning in London that planning has stalled. These are under Conservative councils, not under Labour councils. Yeah. The other thing that might happen now, of course, he's going to become terribly populist. He's going to start resigning all of his previous positions. He's going to start filming himself on the underground. And, you know, you can sort of imagine the cringeworthy TikToks that are about to come out of the Cleverley camp. Yeah, I mean, fair game. I guess you have to do some of that. I think I've done my fair share. But I think I don't know how Andy Burnham's regulated London yet, by the way. It's a weird pitch, isn't it? It's a weird pitch because he hasn't been in power that long. He obviously just is it's just soundbites. But I tell you what, London should be a cash cow. London should be the economic engine that fuels the country. Britain's success is very much dependent on London. And London is waning. And I want it to be an economic powerhouse. I want it to be a city of the future, as it should be. It is London. Yeah, well, I think it's ironic that he's sort of criticising Andy Burnham when Andy Burnham, to all credit to Andy Burnham, is looking to devolve power, give mayors more power. It's a role that he's going for. So if anything, Andy Burnham is sort of on his side in terms of the power that a mayor should have. And he's encouraging mayors to have more power and do more things locally and use more, you know, local things. So I think it's kind of a bit of a pitch, I do agree. But, you know, we'll see. We'll see.