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2 hours ago
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It’s come down to this. Watch any reality TV show and it won’t be long before you hear the lead presenter talking about how each contestant has been on a journey. It’s as though we can’t survive without a narrative structure. An attempt to give emotional meaning to something fundamentally meaningless.
It feels as if everyone has to be on a journey now. If you’re not, then you’re somehow less interesting. Only half a person. Even our politicians are no longer exempt. In the last 24 hours there have been any number of talking heads lining up to tell us that Robert Jenrick has been on quite the journey. His former Tory colleagues. His new tribe at Reform. Even Honest Bob likes to talk about his journey. Makes him feel special and different. Important.
But what sort of journey has Jenrick really been on? Some of the externals may have changed, but the core has always remained the same – once an annoying, self-centred, man-child halfwit, always an annoying, self-centred, man-child halfwit. A politician whose eye has always been on his own ambition. The main chance. No more, no less.
To recap. Back in 2014, when Honest Bob was first elected as MP for Newark, he was a wishy-washy Cameroon. Because that’s what he thought you needed to be to get on in the Tory party. He was a faithful remainer when he thought that was the winning side, and then became a committed Brexiteer in a heartbeat after the vote. Without even an attempt to hide the shamelessness.
Then came his populist phase. No foreigner went unscathed. Especially all those brown and black faces in Birmingham. Because that’s where he thought the votes were. Everything he’s ever done has been to advance his career.
If Jenrick has been on a journey, it’s been a circular one. The man with no qualities. No values. No beliefs. Just a needy homunculus for hire. Hitching his wagon to the highest bidder.
On Friday he was out and about, doing his best grift. Giving an exclusive interview to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg in which he tried to gloss things over. To put the best spin on how he was bounced into defecting to Reform the day before. He had always been planning to do this, he said. There had been many conversations with Nigel Farage. His mind had been made up since Christmas. Really? That’s odd. Because when the Tory chief whip had asked him if he was planning to defect he had replied: “Of course not. Nothing could be further from my mind. Wherever did you get that idea from?”
Laura K sounded unsurprisingly sceptical. How on earth could anyone trust him again? Hurt face from Jenrick. Slapped puppy eyes. No one does this sort of thing lightly, he insisted. And really he had always intended to tell Kemi he was planning to defect, but somehow it was never the right time. If he had a fault it was that he was too kind. He didn’t want to disappoint his party leader because he knew how much she valued and trusted him. Yes, the actual defection itself had been a bit rushed, but it was all for the best in the end. Wasn’t it?
And when you came to think about it, he was really the most trustworthy of all the Tories. His honesty wasn’t in doubt. Because when Richard “Dirty” Desmond, the Tory donor and pornographer, had asked him to rush through a planning application to save him £45m, he had been only too happy to oblige. At least Honest Bob had been open about there being a “real possibility of bias”. Which was a form of honesty. Other Tory cabinet colleagues had pretended to have the country’s best interests at heart. He had never made that claim.
Hmm. The Tories had broken Britain. Only Honest Bob was brave enough to say this. Every other Conservative was in denial. Maybe if there had been more people like him, things would have turned out brilliantly. He didn’t want to boast, but he had been exceptional in all the ministerial roles he had ever taken. If only the same could be said of all the other Tories. The country wouldn’t forgive them. Though obviously they should forgive him. Because he was King Baby.
A byelection would be in no one’s best interests, he went on. Byelections were for the little people. And no one in his constituency wanted one. Apart from all the many thousands who considered his defection a major betrayal and had called for a byelection. Look me in the eyes, Laura. Laura looked. I am going to continue to represent Newark to the best of my ability. He had a pothole repaired in his own drive. What more could anyone ask for?
Laura moved on to his relationship with Farage. Honest Bob had said Nige was unfit to run a school or hospital. Nige had called Honest Bob a liar and a fraud. So how was that going to work? Jenrick simpered. It was the tactics of a pickup artist. To neg the person you are in love with. The reason they had trash-talked each other was because they adored each other. They had a desperate attraction. Couldn’t get enough of each other. Loved each other’s causal racism. And yes there were one or two things they didn’t necessarily see eye to eye on. But Honest Bob could come round. Easy when you don’t believe in anything.
Let this be a unifying moment, said Jenrick. Having just split the right down the middle. He hoped some of his former colleague might join him in rallying around Nige. Though almost certainly not his former party leader. Kemi Badenoch had given her own interview in which she couldn’t have sounded more thrilled to see the back of Honest Bob. A brave face, maybe. Some might have been asking why she hadn’t sacked him sooner. After all, Jenrick has always been hiding in plain sight.
