Robert Jenrick is a cynical opportunist

A good pantomime knows its audience. Among other things, it knows that half the audience are young children who will struggle to follow any plot too complex, and that much of the other half is made up of adults who may well be festively sozzled.

For that reason, a typical panto villain will helpfully tell the audience that he’s the villain, and explain his entirely dastardly plot to the audience in a stage whisper, often while encouraging them to boo along as he does.

Such people would still accuse Conservative shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick of being two-dimensional and lacking in subtlety. Since his defeat to Kemi Badenoch in the party’s leadership contest, Jenrick has been transparently manoeuvring to succeed her as and when she is toppled. He has been openly and relentlessly outflanking Badenoch to the right, secure in the knowledge she is powerless to sack him for doing so.

The problem for Jenrick is just that he’s a dismally bad plotter, incapable of thinking through even the move he is making, let alone trying to play it through even one or two steps ahead.

Jenrick is so naked in his ambition that it drew attention even among the ranks of Conservative MPs, who spoke almost admiringly of how quickly he jettisoned his initial moderate, one-nation Tory values – that had him dubbed “Robert Generic” – when they became inconvenient. Now, he’s playing the role of a firebrand of the right.

The problem is Jenrick is no more able than Badenoch to escape the fact that they were senior ministers in the last government. He is essentially playing the exact same game as Badenoch in exactly the same way, and hoping that it will work out differently for him.

Jenrick is at his cynical worst in trying to exploit the issue of child sexual exploitation following its pickup by Elon Musk. Jenrick was a home office minister under Rishi Sunak until an opportunistic resignation over the cruel and farcical Rwanda policy not going far enough. Before that he was a minister in the departments of health, local government and the Treasury.

He is a consummate insider who has been in parliament for more than a decade. So when he did the flagship 8:10am interview slow on the Today programme on Tuesday, he wanted to use the platform to talk about how outrageous it was that no-one had paid attention to this scandal – first revealed in the Times in 2011 – Nick Robinson quite reasonably asked him what he had done to campaign on the issue previously.

What followed was a toe-curlingly excruciating exchange in which Jenrick several times tried to dodge the question of whether or not he’d raised the issue of grooming gangs or a public inquiry while he was a Home Office minister – he eventually limply claimed he had – before proceeding to be filleted further over raising it in parliament.

“Did you raise it in the House of Commons?” asked Robinson. “I’ve checked Hansard today… when you put in the name ‘Robert Jenrick’, ‘grooming’, no mention. ‘Grooming gang’, no mention. ‘Rotherham’, no mention. ‘Oldham’, no mention. ‘Rochdale’, no mention. ‘Child sexual abuse’, no mention, Mr Jenrick. ‘Child rape’, no mention.”

The audio, during which Jenrick is relentlessly trying to yammer over Robinson about having written an article, is even worse: the relentlessly shallow Jenrick has been caught jumping on a bandwagon, and has no riposte.

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Just as Jenrick discovered his right wing principles years into his parliamentary career – and just when they looked like they could help his elevation – so too has he seized upon the issue of child sexual abuse, and living down to the worst of what people believe of parliamentarians, seen in it a chance for personal political advantage.

Jenrick is likely leading himself into a political cul-de-sac: he’s not providing a contrast to a moderate Tory leader – he is instead merely copying his leader’s playbook of trying to outflank Reform on the right.

Trying to out-Farage Nigel Farage is a losing tactic even on its own merits, but it would tear apart the Conservative Party even from its current low base: at least 50 of its absolute must-win seats in the next election are currently held by the Liberal Democrats. They will not be retaken by anything either Jenrick or Badenoch is offering.

Jenrick is a politician with all of the sophistication and skill of a pantomime villain, and with similar chances of emerging triumphant when the time comes for the curtain call. But it is January, and panto season is over. If Jenrick doesn’t find a better act, and soon, he may find his welcome wearing similarly thin.