Robert Jenrick gives his dad a demotion

Politicians have long sought to downplay their backgrounds in order to make their own rise seem more impressive – but few as blatantly as ambitious shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick.

The self-styled Bobby J, currently fighting a leadership campaign which technically finished last November, has regaled the Tory party conference with the humble profession of his father.

In a speech about how terrible the country is after 15 months of a Labour government – as opposed to the preceding 14-year Conservative government of which he was a member – Jenrick told his audience about “when I went out with tradesmen, gas fitters like my dad, sick of their livelihoods being wrecked when scumbags break into their vans and nick their tools and sell them in plain sight to the local car boot sale”.

Suggested Reading

Badenoch v Jenrick gets catty

Rats in a Sack

Gas fitter? Bobby J’s dad is Bill Jenrick, chairman of fireplace manufacturers Charlton & Jenrick, a firm he started in 1986. He previously worked as finance director and then managing director of gas cooker company Cannon Industries, taking the company to record profits.

In fact, such a successful businessman has he been that before joining Cannon, Bill’s LinkedIn page says he was able to take a year off “to take a small yacht from Jersey through the French canal system to the Mediterranean. I spent the summer and autumn there before returning through the Canal du Midi”.

Let’s hope Daddy J kept those tools firmly locked up while doing so!