The ex-royal aide hoping to be Tory London mayor who backs more legal migration and flexi-working

Open up more legal routes for asylum seekers. Fix the Brexit mess. Give the Metropolitan Police and the Civil Service some love. Embrace flexible working and a four-day week. Improve London’s air quality. Build more homes for single people and families and bring London’s “edge and sense of invincibility” back.

These are the thoughts of a candidate attempting to oust the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan from City Hall in the May 2024 election. But can you guess which party she represents?

If it were not for Khan going for an historic third term, then many of you may have said Labour. Some may have suggested she was the Liberal Democrat’s candidate perhaps, even the Green Party’s choice or a left-leaning independent type.

But Natalie Campbell is none of those. She is hoping to become the Conservative choice to eject Khan from office, despite sounding about as much like the current Tory government as Jeremy Corbyn did Tony Blair.

The serial entrepreneur, former royal aide to the so-called “Fab Four”, Civil Service Commissioner and Chancellor of the University of Westminster does not do conventional politics. In fact, she does not want to do politics at all. She wants to run London as a chief executive would and “de-politicise” one of the most powerful roles in the country.

“I’m not a politician, and that’s a bonus,” says Campbell, who was brought up and heavily influenced by her “small c, hardworking” Jamaican grandparents in north-west London. “I’m approaching this as a CEO, and no one can question my credibility as a CEO.”

And while the Government party of which she’s a member wants to “stop the boats”, refer to civil servants as “the blob”, axe housing targets, and claim Brexit is a success, how does this 39-year-old woman believe her policies fit with current Tory rhetoric?

“The brand of Conservatism I subscribe to is the One Nation approach,” she explains. “When you look at that its values are environmental stewardship, life chances, those sort of values have been lost within the party.”

Despite her insistence that she is a Tory, some may suggest she may have found a more suitable home in the Labour Party. She disagrees.

“I don’t think black women do particularly well in the Labour Party,” she says. “Then, when I think about being an entrepreneur, and the unions’ hold on Labour, it just doesn’t work for me.”

However, Campbell is united with her Tory peers on stopping the expansion of Khan’s Ultra Low Emission Zone from central London to the suburbs. Although even then, she’s not in step with the Conservatives who would like to axe it entirely.

On the widespread criticism of the “woke”, “lazy” Civil Service “blob” from right across the party she says the language being used is “absolutely reductive”.

“I call them the architects of society because that’s what they are,” she adds. “Flexible working is not lazy, it’s more productive. I ran a four-day week at a previous company and it worked. For me, it’s not just about a four-day week. It’s about getting the best from your team from helping them to help the organisation.”

Campbell is unashamedly “middle of the road”. A millennial born and bred in London who believes people are desperate for “normal”.

In a City that rejected Brexit, and in which almost two in three voted for Labour at last year’s local elections, she may be right not to align herself too closely with the party of government, or, indeed, politics at all.

“I’m going to get a ‘middle of the road’ T-shirt for the campaign,” she says. “There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m a normal girl from north-west London, who loves my city and wants to bring back that edge and sense of invincibility London had. London had a vibe, but it’s not keeping up with the times and has lost its way.”

“Most people, especially in London, are middle of the road. Who even knows what left and right means any more anyway?”

To demonstrate her centrist approach, Campbell explains she believes “in a low-tax economy, but I do not believe in greed”.

She runs her ethical business Belu Water, which makes mineral water, tonics and a range of flavoured mixers, but all profits go to the charity Water Aid.

“I guess some would say that makes me left wing, but, like pretty much everyone else, I’m not one thing,” she says. “I’m about generating wealth to create a better society, not to make a small number of people extraordinarily wealthy as the expense of everyone else.

“I will take my CEO approach to deliver recovery and growth, to bring London back – with good homes, safe streets and more opportunities to live better lives.”

It’s a good slogan, and Campbell is sincere in delivering it, but good intentions are easy to proclaim.

“I know how to deliver,” she adds. “I want to take the politics out of the mayor’s office. It’s not all about one person at the top. Who can name a single one of Sadiq’s deputies? Barely anyone. I will put in place experts in every deputy role and people will know who they are because I will give them the freedom to deliver for London.”

The ‘awesome foursome’ royals were stronger together than they are apart

While Natalie Campbell is more interested in discussing her run to become Mayor of London than her previous career as a Royal aide, it would be remiss not to ask about her unique insight into four of the most famous people on the planet.

As well as her impressive CV including various successful business, community and Government roles, Campbell was an adviser to both the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

Campbell advised the “awesome foursome” when they worked together on good causes at the Royal Foundation and also helped Harry and Meghan set up Sussex Royal, the charity they launched as they sought a new life away from Royal duties in California.

After some cajoling, she does eventually give a view on the role the couples carried out together and, now, apart.

“They are all so passionate about making a difference, and the privilege of being a Royal is that your drivers are not political,” she explains. “They can genuinely do good, with no agenda.”

However, she does concede that the two couples may have be in a position to do more good together, than apart.

“Speaking as a member of the public, I’m sad that we don’t have the power of all four of them, doing that great work together,” she says.

One issue she will not be drawn on is the much-reported rift between the two princes.

“It’s just not important, in the grand scheme of things,” she says. “People have far more worries in their everyday lives than worrying about how two couples are getting along. They are the issues I want to help people with as Mayor of London.”

As for Brexit, Campbell is careful not to criticise the choice voters made, but she clearly has some issues with it.

“If the milk has been spilt, why are we debating how the milk was spilt,” she says. “What I do say is how are we cleaning it up, how quickly can we clean it up? What else do we need because now there’s no milk, so what are we having on our cereal?”

While she may have stretched that metaphor somewhat, she is more direct when it comes to the issues of immigration, again in direct opposition to many in her party, not least the current Home Secretary.

“We should have more legal routes for people fleeing conflict, absolutely. There is a caveat to that, though, in that we have public services creaking under the pressure of the current population, so there’s no point saying we can take another X number of people if we’re going to put them in a location where public services are already under huge pressure.”

Regarding the controversies that continually envelope the Met, Campbell has another different approach to many of her Tory colleagues.

“The trust contract between London communities and the Met Police has been broken in a way that no series of roundtables, no series of community sessions will ever fix,” she says before offering something of a unique solution for the UK’s largest force.

“But what I also understand is that the people within the Met Police are emergency responders, who have probably witnessed a deep amount of trauma just going about their jobs.

“We have not supported them, in a caring way, the work that they need to do.

“That might sound really fluffy. But the problems are cultural, deep rooted they needs to be worked on with the Met, not against them. It won’t be changed overnight, but taking that systems view is a really good first step.”

For Campbell to even be in with a chance of becoming her party’s mayoral candidate she first has to convince the Tory’s London Board that she should on the shortlist.

She is against more conventional party thinkers such as Minister for London Paul Scully, London Assembly members Andrew Boff and Susan Hall, as well as Boris Johnson’s former advisor Samuel Kasumu and Duwayne Brooks, the childhood friend of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence.

Once the London Board has selected it’s final three, the candidates will present their case at husting events before party members select their person to take on Khan in mid-July.

“I want to appeal to the millennials in London,” adds Campbell. “I know I can’t rely on Tory voters to win. I want to bring people like me to my campaign and I believe I’m the only Conservative candidate that can do that.”

If she succeeds, not only will Campbell be the first female Mayor, she will be the first that is openly proud of her tattoos.

“I don’t know if Boris or Sadiq have a tattoo,” she says as her pair of Russian toy terriers remain impeccably behaved on her lap as we approach the hour mark in the interview. “They may have for all I know. But I love my tattoos.

“They are an expression of who I am. They were all done in different countries, when I wanted to remember a moment in time.

“These mean live, love, laugh,” she says pointing to the three small inks on her wrist and neck before pointing to another that says “alive on my champagne arm”.

“Then I’ve got my first one, which is a big tattoo of my name on my back. That is the one I would definitely tell any young person not to do.”