Robert Jenrick's Reform defection and the Greenland rift
Planet Normal
Louisa Wells
4.7 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2026
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
You can watch this episode of Planet Normal on YouTube: https://youtu.be/mwWiWA21r1U
The rocket of right thinking is back with a blast and a very special defector is aboard.
Robert Jenrick is strapped in to tell our intrepid co-pilots why he has joined Reform UK and why he thinks the Conservatives didn’t deserve ‘a second chance’.
Your co-pilots return to the cockpit to navigate a world that has grown increasingly volatile in just the first few weeks of 2026.
They discuss whether this is a ‘survival of the wettest’ moment for Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative Party and if Robert Jenrick is the ‘first olive out of the jar’ that will lead to a cascade of further defections.
Alison returns from her time in the Australian Outback. She shares her reflections on why Australia feels like a ‘livable, optimistic society’ compared to the UK
As Donald Trump takes the stage at Davos, the world is reeling from his demand that the US should run Greenland. Liam breaks down the ‘method in the madness’, explaining the critical importance of Greenland’s rare earth minerals for the global semiconductor industry and the strategic value of the melting Northwest Passage.
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Read Allison ‘Forget just under-16s, we all desperately need a social media ban’ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01/21/we-desperately-need-social-media-ban/ |
Read Allison ‘If the Tories can’t admit Britain is broken, they really are finished’:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01/20/britain-is-broken-reform-tories-kemi-badenoch/ |
Read more from Allison: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/a/ak-ao/allison-pearson/ |
Read Liam ‘The war on the horizon that global economies haven’t priced in’: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/01/18/china-america-taiwan-clash-global-economies-not-priced-in/ |
Read more from Liam: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/liam-halligan/ |
Read Liam’s Substack: https://liamhalligan.substack.com/ |
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Telegraph. |
| 0:09.0 | We haven't built a reservoir since I was reading Jackie. |
| 0:14.6 | Four. |
| 0:16.1 | No, Donald. I'm a geopolitical expert. |
| 0:18.8 | Iceland is a shop. |
| 0:20.4 | Three. Shark swim in water. Iceland is a shop. Three. |
| 0:23.1 | Shark swim in water. |
| 0:24.3 | Politicians are ambitious. |
| 0:25.3 | Big surprise. |
| 0:26.2 | Two. |
| 0:28.5 | Detain and deport people end the merry-go-round |
| 0:29.6 | of human rights laws. |
| 0:31.2 | Even put the Navy in the channel |
| 0:33.5 | if that's necessary. |
| 0:35.3 | One. |
| 0:38.8 | We have left off. |
| 0:42.0 | Welcome once again to Planet Normal, the Telegraph podcast with Alison Pearson. |
| 0:46.5 | Hello. |
| 0:47.3 | And me, Liam Halligan. |
| 0:49.6 | And welcome to this, the first shiny new Planet Normal of 2026. |
| 1:11.2 | I'm back from spending some time in the US with my daughter, and Alison's back from Jillerooing across the Australian Outback. Yes, Jilleru is a word, dear Planet Normal citizens, it's Aussie slang for a female sheep or cattle station worker, and co-pilot Pearson, don't you know, is a very fine horsewoman. |
| 1:15.5 | We hope you've enjoyed our best of episodes over recent weeks, some fantastic Planet Normal interviews from 2025 featuring a broad range of guests from frontline politicians |
... |
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