Robert jenrick

The great John O’Sullivan has a story about Enoch Powell which he keeps promising to put into print. Since he still hasn’t done so, I will risk repeating it here. It occurred during a conversation some years after the Rivers of Blood speech. A group of conservatives were talking, and Powell was among them. At some point one of those present referred to the 1968 speech and asked Powell: ‘Why did you do it?’ Powell’s reply started something like this: ‘When the lark sings in the morning they do not say – “Oh lark why dost thou sing?” When the nightingale gives forth her song…’ and so on. After Powell

I’ve just got back from doing a spot of shopping in my local town – and do you know what struck me? How white it was. Absolutely heaving with ghostfaces. In fact, in the hour or so that I spent there I don’t think I saw a single non-white person, apart from some young ladies leaving the local tanning salon who were the colour of a glass of Tango and that doesn’t really count. It is OK to say this, incidentally, if you then use it as a basis to attack the town’s lack of diversity and demand the government ship a few ethnics in, regardless of whether or not

James Cleverly found some unlikely support in parliament on Monday night. Having just been ousted from the Tory leadership contest, he won warm words from the Home Secretary. Yvette Cooper, speaking at a Westminster drinks reception, was sympathetic. She said she knew what it was like to come third in a leadership contest. For her, it was in 2015, when she lost to Jeremy Corbyn and Andy Burnham. For Cleverly, it was this month, when he was defeated by Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick. She wasn’t sure who should feel worse. ‘Yes, sister!’ shouted Cleverly in solidarity. But Cooper wasn’t finished yet. She ended by diagnosing his problem: he couldn’t

As the four candidates prepare to make their pitch at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, we quizzed them about their ideas and ambitions. Why did the Tories lose the general election? JAMES CLEVERLY: We lost the ear of the British public. They stopped listening to us. We over-promised and under–delivered on a load of issues so our election promises were met with real cynicism. People had literally closed their ears – and minds – to our arguments. Even if we had had the best policy platform in the world, people weren’t willing to give us the time of day. If we make fewer promises but make sure that we

Introducing a tub-thumping op-ed in the Mail yesterday, Robert Jenrick quoted Orwell: ‘England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.’ Mr Jenrick’s thesis is a familiar one. It is that ‘England’s political and media elite’ (he didn’t get ‘metropolitan establishment’ in the text but it was supplied in the headline) ‘seem to actively disapprove’ of their nationality, and that this will not do. ‘I can’t stomach such lofty arrogance,’ he declared, calling instead for a willingness to ‘confront complex issues of identity’ while at the same time being unreservedly ‘proud to be British.’ In support of his call for complexity he reeled off

On Tuesday afternoon, a familiar figure pulled up at a Westminster café to plot the Tories’ downfall. Nigel Farage beamed from the back of his black Range Rover as he arrived to welcome Reform’s latest recruits. The purpose of the Old Queen Street summit was to plan the party’s path to next year’s local elections in May. Where better to scheme than in the neighbouring street to Conservative Central Headquarters? ‘It baffles me how we’re the most successful political party in the western world,’ says one Tory While the Tories are enjoying a four-month leadership contest, Farage and his aides are hard at work. A constitution has been drafted to

On Monday night the Conservatives announced the rules of the party’s leadership contest. The reaction in Labour circles was incredulity that their run of good luck has not yet ended. ‘A three-month contest?’ asked one amazed party figure. Are there any candidates who Keir Starmer’s team fears? ‘I doubt the next Tory prime minister is in this parliamentary party,’ replied a senior Labour politician.  The decision to delay picking a new leader until November means Starmer’s government will be, in effect, unopposed as it holds its party conference and then its first Budget. The Tories will be a danger only to each other. Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt will go