The Newark Odeon is showing the CGI action tornado thriller Twisters: ‘As the storm season intensifies, competing teams find themselves in a fight for their lives as multiple systems converge.’
Robert Jenrick productions a little way down the road at the Newark YMCA addressed the same themes, with some very engaging material from the storm season that is upon us.
Machete maniacs in the streets. An EDL intifada. Islamic hysterics swarming London calling for genocide. A police force both craven and sadistic. Ed Miliband.
Multiple systems are certainly converging and perhaps are threatening to tear through “our great nation” like a tornado through a trailer park.
What can our hero do? Will he really be able to control the political weather?
As your sketch writer falls into the category of “interested but not obsessed” Robert Jenrick is a new experience. At first sight, he is a perfectly nice young man. Compact, clerkly, with a quick and clever mouth and a set of conservative algorithms that played very well to his Conservative supporters.
He said, quite daringly, “I’m not going to lie to you.” There aren’t many politicians who give such a hostage to fortune out loud, in public, to a launch audience.
He was going to tell us some hard truths. “My campaign is based on hard truths,” he said. We braced ourselves.
He told us of the people of Newark. The doers, the makers of things, the hard workers who get up early, do the best for their family and embody the best values of their country (not a word about me, I noticed) – and that those were the people he was in politics for.
Tough talk. Resolutely, unashamedly One Nation.
“The particular problems we face as a country stem from the fact that the British system isn’t working for British people.”
Yes. There it was again. Hard truth 2.
Trust. That had to be won back. And to do that, the Conservative party had to change. A lot.
Exactly how it was to change will be left to later in the campaign. It may be that they haven’t been sufficiently inclusive. We shall find out in due course.
He wants a broad church “but with a common creed”. He is going to rebuild trust. This is easier than it sounds. Everyone already trusts the Conservatives (although to do what is another question). He is going to rebuild the party on the values of generosity of spirit, respect for institutions and our yearning for national unity.
He was speaking quickly enough that we didn’t have time to ask: do conservatives really respect institutions – parliament, the police, the BBC, the CPS, the civil service? Isn’t national unity quite an ask from a disunited party and doesn’t the very idea conjure up ein reich, ein volk? And isn’t generosity of spirit what’s got us into this mess with mass immigration, welfare dependency and the urge to accommodate biological men who believe they are biological women?
There was another nagging doubt from the meeting. The illegal immigrants whom he would detain on landing and remove within days. A perfectly good policy – except there was no answer to the question (asked more than once) where to? Where would these migrants be removed to? “A better Rwanda?” Chris Hope asked, without getting an answer. And would he withdraw from the European Court of Human Rights? “My position on that is crystal clear,” he said, quite unwilling to say that hard truth out loud.
So, the tough question that emerged in the aftermath of the meeting was: Is Robert Jenrick prime ministerial timber? Does he have the manner, the mind, the voice that can reach into our hopes and fears. Can he form a relationship with the public such that they don’t flinch when he says he wants to be leader of the Conservative party and that under his leadership the party can win the next general election?
Time alone will tell.
PS: The Newark Odeon is also showing Wolverine vs Deadpool. But that’s a production to come after the party conference when the final two candidates meet in tooth and claw.
In the interests of Inclusion and/or Conservative diversity, either Kemi or Cleverly will have to make space for Jenrick. But will DEI sceptics have their doubts realised?
