QUENTIN LETTS: With a glint in her eye, Kemi pounced on the Great Xerox Bungle and assassinated her ex-leadership rival
Kemi Badenoch recently acquired a chunky new leather handbag. At 11.06am we learned that it contained a Kalashnikov. Bang bang! Mrs B was on a campaign visit to Scotland, home of Macbeth, when she posted a social-media video announcing she’d rubbed out Robert Jenrick. Shadow justice secretary Bobby J was not only relieved of his frontbench duties but was also suspended as a Tory MP.
Macbeth observed, ’twere well it were done quickly.’ Or as Al Capone more likely put it, ‘cement da kid’s shoes before he reaches for his roscoe’.
Mrs Badenoch’s video was an instant, meme-ready classic. It appeared to have been filmed on the campaign trail in some kitchen or launderette. Out of focus in the background were two microwave ovens or washing machines.
Kemi was remarkably twinkly-eyed about assassinating her former leadership rival – and plunging the Right into ruptures. Mr Jenrick had been caught plotting. Some chump had left his Reform-defection strategy on a photocopier. Mrs Badenoch pounced on the great Xerox bungle and, in the process, gave British politics a monocle-popping moment.
The Commons at that very hour was discussing Sir Keir Starmer‘s ID cards fiasco. At 11.11, listless Labour backbenchers started nudging each other and gawping at their telephones. The junior minister entrusted with explaining the Government’s ID cards incompetence was shown the Jenrick news. He slumped back in his seat with a look of almost weepy relief. All the talk now would be about the riven Right. Labour’s inadequacies would recede from view. This is how we ended up with Sir Keir in the first place and it might now happen again.
Nigel Farage, like Mrs Badenoch, was north of the border, in sun-kissed Kirkcaldy, doing a turn with a drawly laird who will lead Reform’s efforts for the Scottish Parliament. One moment the laird, a purplish 1950s booby lacquered in hair oil, was the object of everyone’s rapture. The next moment, ping! No one gave a monkey’s what he thought. All the questions were now about the Jenrick sensation.
Mr Farage seemed as surprised as anyone. He gaily confirmed that he had been in discussions with Mr Jenrick. So much for the latter’s protestations of innocence. ‘I’ll give him a ring this afternoon,’ chortled Mr Farage. ‘I might even buy him a pint.’ The Reform leader’s plan for the day included a flight south for a Press conference in London, originally about Labour’s cancellation of local elections.
The rolling-news networks were on double-spin. At 12.15 Sky News suggested that Mr Jenrick could become a ‘John the Baptist figure’ for Mr Farage, who thus presumably becomes the Messiah. Given that the Baptist’s head ended up on Salome’s platter, that might be an analogy Mr Jenrick and his wife (tigress) might not wish to pursue. At 1.14 an expression of solidarity to Mr Jenrick came from the TUC, which never likes to see a chap peremptorily sacked. An hour later Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg shimmered on to the ether, elegantly to hedge his bets.
Kemi Badenoch did not hesitate when it came to sacking Robert Jenrick from her top team
The former Conservative Cabinet minister moments before his defection was announced
Underneath Big Ben in the Westminster cloisters a Jenrick special adviser was seen almost eating his iPhone as he had an urgent conversation. Hailed by reporters, the aide scuttled to a distant hollow. Mr Jenrick, normally publicity-prone, was nowhere to be seen. Would he deny everything? Join Reform? Trigger a Newark by-election? A hundred known-unknowns were dancing a waltz. Politics at such times is an addictive mix of eightsome reel and Russian roulette. Who will partner whom? Will they have their brains blown out mid-jig?
The most obvious beneficiary of all this chaos, Sir Keir Starmer, happened to be in Scotland, too. What a day for Highland news hacks. The nasal knight waddled up to the television cameras and accused ‘Badenoch’ (he would not deign to call her Mrs) of dithering timidity. He can blinking talk!
Soon Kevin Hollinrake, Conservative party chairman, popped up to say Mr Jenrick had been ‘treacherous’. ‘There were no policy differences – this was about the interests of Robert Jenrick,’ complained Mr Hollinrake, whose TV live-feed earpiece leapt out of his lughole while he was mid-performance.
Naked ambition. It is both the essence and curse of democracy. The last time there was a rumpus quite like this was when Ted sacked Enoch in 1968.
And then to a foetid room at the top of a Westminster skyscraper to see Mr Jenrick’s arrival in the arms of doting grandfather Farage. At 4.38pm, after a briefly awkward pause, he stepped up to the lectern and made a remarkably fluent speech, which dissed, by name, some of his former colleagues. All due allegiance was paid to old Nigel, just as wolves were once expected to howl their loyalty to Akela.
Mr Farage, who said he had never received such a late Christmas present, sat at an adjacent chair, admiring his fingernails. Nasty cough he has, by the way. But now a successor is in place.
