Our two constituencies sit about thirty miles apart.

Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner is in the far north west, where the Metropolitan line runs out towards the Chilterns.

Orpington is in the far south east, on the Kent border.

On a weekday morning the journey between them takes longer than the train to Birmingham, and the differences between them display just how large and diverse London, and its voter base, is.

We were both first elected as councillors in the same year, 1998: one in Hillingdon, one in Bexley. Between us we have spent the better part of three decades running London services, setting London budgets and scrutinising a London Mayor. We have also occasionally disagreed, not least on more than one leadership contest. Colleagues might place us in different traditions of the Conservative Party.

But there is much we agree on too, not least the need for a Conservative vision for London again, and the person who is best placed to deliver that: James Cleverly.

We have both worked closely with him, most recently in the shadow housing, communities and local government team.

He is London to his core. He was born at Lewisham Hospital and educated in south east London. He grew up here and started a family here. He served eight years on the London Assembly for Bexley and Bromley, and chaired the fire authority. One of us succeeded him in that Assembly seat in 2016, and can vouch for the work he did. He then went on to run the Foreign Office and the Home Office. Nobody has ever sought this job with that combination of London and national experience and a record of delivery to match. We must, as a party, grasp the opportunity to put forward such a strong candidate with both hands.

London is much more than just one city. It is inner and outer, terraces and towers, congregations and chambers of commerce, pubs and museums, tubes and self-driving taxis. Any Conservative who wins here must assemble a coalition of improbable breadth and then hold it together. Anyone who has campaigned with James knows he has the rare ability to walk into a room full of people who did not vote for him and leave it having been heard.

He also likes the place, which ought to be unremarkable in a candidate for Mayor and is not.

As he has said himself, you cannot credibly stand to lead a city you obviously hate. Reform’s pitch to Londoners amounts to telling them that their home is finished. Ours cannot be a competition in running the capital down. Londoners can hold two thoughts at once: that this is the greatest city on earth, and that its potential is being squandered and its problems left to grow under Sadiq Khan and Labour’s leadership.

London also needs somebody who will fight for it.

For the first time in a generation we have a Prime Minister explicitly committed to redistributing from the capital: with taxes raised and funding cut in ways that target London above all else.

Sadiq Khan has spent ten years explaining that London’s problems belong to somebody else.

We need a Mayor who will stand up for London, and champion it in Whitehall and across the world.

Under Kemi’s leadership we have moved as a party from the brink of collapse to the foothills of renewal. Now we have a unique opportunity to begin to build a path back to government, and delivering a Conservative vision to build a stronger country. It starts with picking a candidate who can win in London, and deliver here, to remind people what Conservatives can do in office.

We are backing James Cleverly for Mayor of London, and implore all of our colleagues across the party to do the same.