Star Was Lover James Cleverly Tries To Defy The Odds

Having served in two of the great offices of state, James Cleverly has the most cabinet experience of any of the candidates.

But it is unclear whether his colleagues feel this translates to strong leadership prospects.

James Cleverly, 55, was born in Lewisham to Evelyn, a midwife from Sierra Leone, and Wiltshire-born Philip, a surveyor who ran his own business. The midwife who attended the deliveries of both of Cleverly’s own sons, Freddy, 22, and Rupert, 20, trained under his mother. Cleverly grew up in south London in the 1970s and has recalled times when the National Front marched through streets near his home, experiencing teasing from kids for being mixed-race.

He was an only child after his parents realised they couldn’t afford two sets of private education, with the family sharing a one-bed flat – his parents sleeping on a fold-out bed in the living room – to afford school fees. After attending Colfe’s School, a private school in south-east London (where he later sent his sons), Cleverly hoped to follow family tradition in joining the army, but a leg injury during his second year of training at Sandhurst forced a rethink. He did a degree in hospitality management studies and started working in magazine and digital publishing while also joining the Territorial Army (TA).

Cleverly has always voted Conservative, first standing for local government in 2002 after knocking on doors the year before left him stunned by the hostility he received from Black voters at voting Conservative. A memo he wrote on how to overcome that was shared through friends of friends and eventually made its way to then-Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith. The pair met to discuss detoxifying the Tory brand and Cleverly still cites Duncan Smith’s work to