Tuesday marked the 213th day since Kemi Badenoch was elected leader of the Conservative Party. Or, to look at it another way, it was Day 212 of Robert Jenrick’s leadership campaign. The Shadow Justice Secretary marked the moment with a brief appearance in the House of Commons and a rather longer one on social media. That’s where the eyeballs are.
It was Justice Questions, so Jenrick rose to take the government to task. The Southport killer had allegedly attacked a prison officer, he said. “He is now bingeing on treats such as Maltesers and Pringles.” Close the prison tuck shop forthwith!
Once upon a time Jenrick had the air of a man familiar with the inside of a Pringles tube, but no more. He says he only dabbled with weight-loss drugs, and that his new lean and hungry look is the result of good diet and exercise. The bigger question is whether he is also trialling shame-loss drugs. How else to explain his enthusiasm for touring Britain complaining about the state of the country, when the seats in ministerial cars are still warm from Tory bottoms?
Jenrick is a one-man powerhouse, revealing everything from the appalling state of British prisons to the reluctance of police to tackle fare-dodging on the Tube. In a way, it’s magnificent. After the 2010 election, the Tories discovered that the outgoing Labour government had laid legislative traps to embarrass them, for instance requiring the publication of child poverty figures. Perhaps we should look at the total degradation of the public realm over the last decade in the same light. Sure, it isn’t great that last summer there were no prison places and that the cops had basically stopped investigating crime, but on the upside, it meant that Jenrick was able to hit the ground pointing at things that don’t work.
A man possessed of a sense of shame would feel obliged to admit that, just possibly, the state of British prisons is down to the government of which he was an enthusiastic member. Not Jenrick.
He’s not the only Tory frontbencher struggling with the problem. After Justice Questions, Victoria Atkins had an urgent question down about US investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts pulling out of its relationship with Thames Water. It is just possible that the problems of Britain’s water companies are more than 10 months old. Still, Atkins did her best. “According to a source close to KKR,” she declared, “one of the reasons it pulled out was its concern about negative rhetoric directed at Thames Water and the rest of the industry in recent weeks by the secretary of state.” This idea prompted some mockery in the chamber. Who knew that KKR, the apex-predator capitalists so memorably described in Barbarians At The Gate, were actually a posy of delicate flowers?
A session of the Home Affairs Committee in the afternoon also showed the difficulties faced by the opposition. When Yvette Cooper chaired the committee, it used to menace home secretaries. Now the tables were turned, and she was giving evidence before it. But because its make-up reflects the balance of the chamber, there are only two Conservative members, to seven from Labour.
The effect was less an inquisition, more a seminar, with Cooper still very much in charge. She greeted each MP with a huge warm smile, like a favourite student returning from the long vacation. One of them, Jake Richards, began by revealing that “a member of my family works for the Home Secretary”. This is his sister Amy, Cooper’s chief of staff. Cooper apologised that she didn’t have the precise detail he was asking for: “I can write to you.” Or just get Amy to stick it in the family WhatsApp.
With Labour so dominant in Parliament, you can see why Jenrick prefers social media. He has dropped three different professionally edited videos in the last week alone.
Tuesday’s attacked attorney general Lord Hermer for having been, in a previous life, a lawyer. But not the good sort of lawyer who only represents kindly gentlemen who wish to leave their fortunes to orphanages, oh no. Jenrick has discovered that Lord Hermer represented foreigners! “Defending Britain’s enemies,” as Jenrick put it.
“Even the perception of this kind of stuff damages public trust,” said Jenrick, who when he was in the Cabinet gave planning permission to a Tory donor who had lobbied him at a fundraising dinner.
All these messages are dropped on X, as Twitter is now called. Many in British life have become increasingly uneasy about the platform as owner Elon Musk has continued his research into how much ketamine one man can ingest, but not the Conservative Party. Older readers may remember a time when Britain’s Tories were deeply concerned about antisemitism. Jenrick, for instance, suggested foreigners should be deported if they promoted it. His concern was understandable: his wife is Jewish. Should we be surprised that he is happy to rely on one of the few platforms to allow the rapper Kanye West to upload his latest song, the ambiguously titled “Heil Hitler”? We should not. Maybe it’s the shame-loss drugs, or maybe he’s just going where the eyeballs are.
