Poor old Robert Jenrick. He has spent eleven gruelling months touring associations, existing on a diet of Ozempic and rubber-chicken, only to lose to Kemi Badenoch by a double-digit margin on Saturday. Badenoch may yet offer Jenrick a role in her shadow cabinet. But if she doesn’t – or if Jenrick politely declines any such offer – the question then becomes what will he do next?
Prior to entering politics, one career that Jenrick did try his hand at was journalism. Mr S has done some digging and it turns out that the Newark MP actually has something of a flair for words. A history student of St John’s College, Cambridge, Jenrick served as News Editor for the famous student newspaper Varsity. Past contributors include the likes of Charles III, Stephen Hawking and, er, Andy Burnham. Illustruous company indeed.
A quick trawl of the archives suggests that young ‘Jenners’ certainly knew a story when he saw one – with ‘Passion in the Pulpit: Chaplain Resigns’ being the best of the bunch. But the one which caught Steerpike’s eye was an ‘inside piece’ on the Iraq crisis, titled ‘He didn’t sleep with the President but…’ The article, published October 2002, features a grinning Jenrick alongside Condoleezza Rice.
It includes the ‘scoop’ that the decision to topple the Taliabn was made while George Bush, Tony Blair and Rice were ‘striding away on tread-mills in the Camp David gym.’ Jenrick, who spent the summer in D.C as an intern, wrote about the ‘inconsistency of purpose’ in the interventionist ‘U.S mindset’ mixing ‘enlightened paternalism’ with ‘isolationist self interest.’ Twenty two years later, he of course is now one of the most prominent backers of Donald Trump in the Tory party.
Sadly, despite his youthful talent, it seems that Jenrick decided that being a hack wasn’t for him. In his final year before graduating in 2003, he opted to stand as the St John’s Junior Common Room president. After a resounding loss – in which he was first defeated by the ‘reopen-nominations candidate’ and then another student – he settled on a career in law after further studies at the University of Pennsylvania, the College of Law and finally BPP.
But with the likes of Boris Johnson and George Osborne taking up Fleet Street roles after leaving office, could a return to writing now be on the cards for Jenrick?
