THE BIG READ: Let's hear it for ambition and ruthlessness in politics and for their latest alpha exponent - Robert Jenrick

The new Tory leadership favourite has become a compelling figure with genuine potential to change our country for the better

Photo by Andrew Shelley on Unsplash

MANY of us will have had moments in our careers which required us to be single-minded and even a touch ruthless.

My own key career break came when I was working on my second regional newspaper, the Birmingham Post. I had arrived having just won an award as Yorkshire Journalist of the Year for investigative work while on the Hull Daily Mail. Many of my contemporaries from the 1988 City University graduate journalism diploma course had by this stage moved to London to do “shifts” on national titles – day-at-a-time freelance work with no guaranteed income.

My problem was that I had zero “family money” behind me and was therefore not in a good position to pay London living costs in the tough early months. But then the Westminster-based political editor’s job at the Birmingham Post fell vacant.

As a new arrival on the paper, I was not the obvious most favoured candidate (though having a Cambridge economics degree was undoubtedly a point in my favour). Anyhow, I decided to go full on for the job.

I secretly went down to London on a day off to get briefed by the outgoing chap who was off to the Daily Mirror. The main purpose of this trip was simply that I knew it would get back to the editor that I had bothered to undertake it. I also knew that one of the tasks of the political editor was to write leader columns for the paper, so I submitted some specimen leaders with my application. Anyhow, dear reader, I got the job to the surprise of the newsroom and the disappointment of the ante-post favourite who seemed just to assume it would fall into his lap. My main advantage was that I wanted it more. And hence was I able to undertake a velvet transition down to London without ever having to abandon the security of a “staff job”.

I don’t share this anecdote of distant days in provincial newspapers to blow my own trumpet, but to highlight that setting out after a goal with focus and discipline can often yield positive results and can catch off-guard those who have become complacent following earlier success. All of which leads us neatly on to Robert Jenrick.

Long-time followers of this blog will know I identified and wrote about his charge for the Tory leadership six months ago.

( https://patrickoflynn.substack.com/p/the-big-read-theres-a-new-contender )

The comprehensive nature of his assault on his personal Everest is genuinely impressive. For starters, he has changed his appearance. A honed and toned physique and a hardman haircut have replaced the roly-poly, floppy-haired Tory Boy look of old. I do not say that these changes have in themselves made him much more likely to win. On the contrary it is precisely their status as marginal advantages that should have told the commentariat to start taking him very seriously much sooner. Here was a man leaving no stone unturned, on indeed unshed.

His resignation from the Rishi Sunak administration last December over immigration policy must also count as the most daring strategic departure since Michael Heseltine walked out of Thatcher’s Cabinet foreseeing no circumstances in which he would ever have a tilt for her job.

Jenrick has made all the running on policy covering both the legal and illegal varieties of immigration since then. But he has also got ahead of the curve on numerous other issues – for example, opposing the Sunak administration’s early release of prisoners scheme which proved a pre-cursor to Labour’s even-earlier release scheme.

In the Commons, he took a strong line on the indulgence of Islamist bigotry on the streets of London. He got in early with a higher defence spending pledge. He also led a bold assault by a group of bright young Tories on the state’s increasing predilection for withholding data on controversial issues, such as differential crime rates or economic activity rates among people from different countries of origin.

When the leadership contest began – earlier than most people expected owing to the early general election – Jenrick was ready with more financial backing, a more settled team and better and more voluminous video content than anyone else.

His latest video about why we must leave the European Convention on Human Rights is an absolute banger – far more edgy and daring than anything Reform has come out with since the general election.

You can view it here. ( https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1840659469727916246 )

My assessment is that it’s a minor masterpiece - a full tabloid-friendly package of political communication: diamond hard content on a foundational political issue presented by the super-focused owner of chiselled cheekbones and a steely gaze.

I wrote back in early April, at the conclusion of my article about him then, that: “He still seems to me to be someone who might turn out to be a top three Tory rather than that singular force of nature who will soon enough have to take the party by the scruff of the next and refashion it for a post-globalist era.”

But the latest Jenrick campaign video may well mark the moment when he moved