RUSHES: 2024 Conservative Party leadership election: James Cleverly campaign launch

2024 Conservative Party leadership election: James Cleverly campaign launch; Part 5 of 23 ENGLAND: London: Westminster: INT James Cleverly MP (Shadow Home Secretary) speech SOT. - "Disraeli saw injustice. He saw the injustice of children doing dangerous work, drinking disease ridden water. So he brought in the factory act and the Public Health Act. Churchill saw fascism and stood up to it. Thatcher saw economic defeatism and reversed it. That decisiveness is what we need to show now, and I will of course, the challenges of today are different to the challenges of the past. But we must have the courage of our Conservative forebears to tackle the great problems of our time. And let me set out what I believe are the three great challenges that we face, that we must and that I will, with your support, tackle head on. The first of these challenges is our deeply unstable world. Now the warning lights were flashing red, well before Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And the sad fact? Is that there are a few reasons to believe that the world is going to be any safer or more secure. Anytime soon, Authoritarian regimes are increasingly trying to undermine our way of life. The freedoms that we cherish and the international rules that have kept us safe are under threat. And I have seen the threats that our country face. I have been in charge of MI6 of MI5, of GCHQ, I've been to Ukraine, I've been to Taiwan, to the Baltic, to the Caucasus. I've looked at Russian soldiers occupying land that isn't theirs. I was the first foreign minister to visit Israel after the 7th of October atrocities. Now, when Grant was Secretary of State for Defence, he set out a timetable to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence by 20-30. But Starmer, in an act of vandalism, has scrapped that pledge now. I supported Grant when he made the bold decision then, but I will go further and as he said, I will commit as Prime Minister to spend 3% of GDP on defence.