Is Robert Jenrick on manoeuvres?

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Despite this being the week that Kemi Badenoch finally showed some steel in PMQs, it’s Robert Jenrick who has been stealing the headlines. That’s for lots of reasons – mainly his comments about a potential Tory Reform pact, which he clarified on Good Morning Britain this morning, saying: ‘Kemi Badenoch and I are on exactly the same page. Kemi has been very clear there won’t be a pact with Reform, and I’ve said time and again that I want to put Reform out of business. I want to send Nigel Farage back to retirement.’ This follows leaked footage which surfaced this week from a student event in late March, where he appeared to suggest that he would back a pact to join forces with Farage.

Elsewhere, he had a big win when Yvette Cooper announced that the government will publish migrant crime league tables – a policy he has pushed for. Is he the prince across the water? Or do we need to give Kemi a break?

Oscar Edmondson speaks to James Heale and Henry Hill, deputy editor at Conservative Home.

Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Spectator magazine is home to wonderful writing, insightful analysis and unrivaled books and
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0:11.7	along with a free £20 £10,000 or Waitrose voucher. Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash
0:18.1	voucher.
0:23.1	Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast.
0:27.8	I'm Oscar Edmondson and I'm joined today by the Spectator's Deputy Political Editor
0:31.3	James Heel and Henry Hill, Deputy Editor at Conservative Home.
0:36.0	Now, despite this being the week that Kemi Badernock finally showed some steal in PMQ's,
0:40.6	it's Robert Generic who's been stealing the headlines.
0:43.3	And that's for lots of reasons, mainly his comments about potential Tory reform pact.
0:48.0	James, to start with, can you take us through Robert Generic's interesting week?
0:52.3	Sure. So this all really began on Wednesday when Sky News got a recording of Robert Generic's interesting week. Sure. So this all really began on Wednesday when
0:54.7	Sky News got a recording of Robert Generic speaking to UCL students last month in which he talked
1:00.3	about the need to sort of have a coalition of the right. And thereafter that led to, for instance,
1:05.1	the Lib Dems, calling for him to be sacked because they were suggesting that he wanted a formal
1:09.2	coalition in the sense of a merger of the two parties or a pact.
1:12.4	It also led to Labor, demanding questions, etc, about whether there are going to be a unity deal or something like that.
1:17.4	And thereafter, there's been a couple of days of speculation. Sky, I followed it up. We're looking at sort of these nice,
1:21.8	headed pieces of paper from Robert Generated candidates across the country offering them help. And then, of course, you know, he did GMB this morning.
1:28.5	We can hear a bit of it here.
1:30.0	I'm not going to get into personal attacks with Nigel.
1:34.3	He's the leader of another political party.
	...

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