All eyes are on Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick to see who emerges out of the Tory leadership race to sit across from Keir Starmer in the House of Commons.
Mr Kenrick, 42, became a familiar face over the Covid pandemic holding some of the press conferences as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.
However after advising the public on how to help protect loved ones from the virus in the conferences and press interviews, it was evealed he travelled to his parents’ home in Shropshire and to his family home, a 17th century manor house in Herefordshire, more than 150 miles from London and 130 miles from his Newark constituency.
Although he said he was delivering food and medicine to his elderly parents and did not enter their house, his visit came after he appealed to people not to visit their family on Mother’s Day.
Mr Jenrick grew up in Wolverhampton and told the Tory conference in Birmingham, he came from a “working-class background”.
The Conservative MP for Newark who is currently Shadow Minister of State for Immigration, described his father as a “white van man” who started his own business.
(
PA)
At his grandmother’s expense he fee-paying Wolverhampton Grammar School. From there it was Cambridge University, where he read history, then political science at the University of Pennsylvania, before qualifying as a solicitor.
While working as a solicitor, he met his American wife, Michal Berkner, a high-flying corporate lawyer.
The couple have three daughters and speaking to GB News he revealed that one of them – his second daughter Sophia shares a name with the late Conservative prime minister. “It is Margaret Thatcher … It’s Thatcher. She was born the year that Margaret Thatcher died.” he told the programme.
“I thought it was a good way of reminding her of a good prime minister,” he added. Mr Jenrick also told the news show that he chose the name because he respected “strong women,” adding: “Everyone is female at my house. I’ve got three daughters, my wife and two dogs, who are both female.”
And there is no doubt he married one. Michal who is eight years older than her husband is believed to be the driving force behind his ambition to be Tory leader.
A regular in the front row at his speaking events, her own high-powered career has kept her very busy in recent years – and created some controversy for her husband.
In September we reported how Mrs Jenrick, who uses her maiden name professionally, advised oligarchs sanctioned in the wake of Russia ’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
She advised a consortium of billionaires – three of whom were later designated by the UK after the Kremlin assault.
One of them even had their $90million yacht seized after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. A document unearthed by the Mirror lists a host of clients Berkner has advised.
(
PA)
They include Alfa-Access-Renova, a consortium of four billionaires who have all been sanctioned by the UK or Ukraine. The consortium reportedly included Mikhail Fridman, Len Blavatnik, Viktor Vekselberg and German Khan. Fridman, Khan and Vekselberg were sanctioned by the UK in March 2022 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Announcing the sanctions, then Foreign Secretary Liz Truss – Jenrick’s colleague – said: “We are going further and faster than ever in hitting those closest to Putin – from major oligarchs, to his Prime Minister, and the propagandists who peddle his lies and disinformation. We are holding them to account for their complicity in Russia’s crimes in Ukraine.”
A spokesman for the Jenrick Campaign said: “Michal is a lawyer. Robert has been personally sanctioned by the Kremlin for being amongst the most stridently anti-Putin MPs in Parliament.”
There is no suggestion of legal or regulatory wrongdoing by his wife.
And Mr Jenrick is secure in knowing he has proved he is always committed to the Tory cause. One source om his camp told the Guardian that when he married his wife, the date of the wedding meant he went straight from the nuptials to the Conservative conference, only going on honeymoon afterwards.
After his party lost nearly half the seats they contested resulting in a storming victory for Labour that enabled a government for the first time in 14 years.
And his choice of name for his daughter gives every indication that after such an embarassing defeat – he will be as serious as the Iron Lady in trying to claw back power.