james spencer cleverly (born 4 september 1969) is a british conservative politician. he has been the foreign secretary since 2022. in july 2019, he became minister without portfolio and chairman of the conservative party for the boris johnson ministry. he is the member of parliament (mp) for braintree since 2015. cleverly was the deputy chairman of the conservative party from 2018 to 2019. in 2022, he served as the secretary of state for education.