Clear, Irrefutable Evidence

"We have all had enough of political psychodrama, so I am sacking Robert Jenrick via a video message to the media," is right up there with, "Today is not a day for soundbites, I feel the hand of history upon our shoulder." But Kemi Badenoch did not mention Reform UK, so how do we know that Jenrick had not been about to join Plaid Cymru?

Assuming that he had not been, then Jenrick has come a long way in the 12 years since he entered Parliament on Labour and Liberal Democrat tactical votes to keep out the old UKIP, and even in the 10 years since he campaigned vigorously for Remain. Reannouncing the defection of a Conservative Peer who had not voted since 11 November and who was "retiring" even from that, Nigel Farage failed to welcome Jenrick to Reform or even to say that in principle he would.

Being about one tenth as clever as he thinks he is, Jenrick is both crooked and vicious, so bent that even Boris Johnson felt obliged to sack him, and so spiteful that he ordered the painting over of cartoon characters on a wall lest they had given some small pleasure to refugee children. He spent at least £700 million of public money for Rwanda to take four volunteers. He would fit right into the present Government.

Not very long ago, Jenrick's remarks about skin colour, and that was explicitly what they were about, would have been career-ending. In September, he was criticised from the Bench for risking the collapse of a murder trial. In October, in quite possibly defaming the Attorney General, he made far from his first demonstration of the fact that he did not understand the cab rank rule. To the horror of Lord Sumption, Jenrick has a hit list of "dozens of judges" to be removed for their politics. Is he still a solicitor? If so, then how is that possible?

Jenrick gave his daughter the middle name Thatcher. Not Margaret. Thatcher. As an unsuccessful candidate for Leader of the Conservative Party, he claimed to have, "met pensioners who had illegal migrants in their bedrooms when they woke up in the morning." And he wants points of entry to the United Kingdom to display the flag of a foreign state. Within living memory, that was the flag of the anti-British inventors of modern terrorism. Only half as long ago, that state armed Argentina during the Falklands War. Though not for that reason, Jenrick's beloved Margaret Thatcher imposed an arms embargo on it.