Sir James Cleverly has resigned from the shadow cabinet to wage what he describes as a counter-offensive against London itself. The strategic objective: become mayor and establish a command centre in City Hall from which to prosecute his metaphorical campaign against the capital’s alleged warmonger, Andy Burnham.
Cleverley’s resignation letter, which did not actually mention any war, has been reinterpreted by everyone with a keyboard as a declaration of total conflict. The subtext, according to people who enjoy subtext, is that Burnham has been running an undeclared assault on London’s morale, infrastructure, and general vibe for months. Cleverly intends to stop him by winning an election.
The mayor’s office, currently a administrative building with some desks and a coffee machine, will be retrofitted as a war room. Tactical maps of the M25 are already being printed. Burnham’s recent comments about regional devolution have been classified as enemy communications. Every policy disagreement is now a skirmish. Every budget allocation is a battle line.
Will Cleverly’s military-grade approach to local government actually work? No. But the press releases will be magnificent. Burnham has already accused Cleverly of planning a counter-insurgency, which is technically accurate if you replace ‘counter-insurgency’ with ‘electoral campaign’ and ‘insurgency’ with ‘existing as mayor of Manchester.’
The real war, as always, is between what politicians say and what they actually mean. Cleverly just made it literal.