What the hell is Robert Jenrick trying to tell us? | David Mitchell

LResponding to the question “What was the last book you read?” said Conservative leadership contender Robert Jenrick A Tale of Two Cities. There’s a lot to unpack there. First, some context: It was in the “Quickfire Questions” section of an interview in Daily Mailwhose readers may include one or two members of the Conservative Party. Possibly even more. As a political professional, Jenrick will have concentrated on being well received by them.

However, it’s difficult for him because that’s not the same as generally coming across well. It is not the general public that he is courting. Not even Tory voters. No, he has to appeal to an electorate of people who make those who just vote conservative seem like hand-wringing, woke hipsters. This is a group that confidently elected Liz Truss as Prime Minister just two years ago. Admittedly, Rishi Sunak was the only other dish on the menu, but to any sensible person that still seems like a perverse choice. Sunak has many critics, but only one of them believes that Liz Truss was a better Prime Minister than him, and that person’s name is Liz Truss.

Still, it is this group whose support Jenrick needs to maintain while remaining relatively credible to everyone else, because if he wins he will need some of their votes at some point too. You can’t get too crazy and advocate shooting dogs for urinating on war memorials or putting actors in jail for mumbling on TV. This will only be a short-term gain. That’s what was on everyone’s mind when the Jenrick team sat down to help him answer the question: “What was the last book you read?”

By the way, it is not a setback to Jenrick that I suggest that his answer may be untrue. Let’s not blame him – especially when there’s so much more to choose from. Politicians have to lie a little in such questionnaires. They’re trying to paint a picture, and a snapshot of their reading habits isn’t always enough. What if he’s just finished? The expert for flowering shrubs by DG Hessayon? Should he admit that and be pigeonholed as a candidate?

“So what should we say?” they must have been thinking. “How would we like you to come across?” The fact that the subsequent conversation ended with the selection of A Tale of Two Cities is quietly one of the most inexplicable things in the universe.

Look, I understand that A Tale of Two Cities is considered a good book. I haven’t read it, but Charles Dickens is a great author and it is one of his most successful novels. And he has been dead for a long time and has an excellent reputation A Tale of Two Cities is definitely real literature. And English literature at that – doubly English, since it was written in English by a person who is also English, which I think the Tory faithful would approve of. It’s not some immigrant Pole like Joseph Conrad who comes here and takes on the entire novel.

And because it’s Dickens, it feels relatively accessible in English literature. There are more Disney and Muppets versions of Dickens’ books than there are of George Eliot, Thomas Hardy or EM Forster. In defense of his answer, Jenrick describes himself as a fan of highly regarded, yet relatively accessible, British-based historical fiction, all of which is thoroughly “on the brand.”

The problem is that it is So “on brand” that it is a ridiculous answer to the question. It’s like answering the question “What did you do over the weekend?” by saying, “I spent it to cut taxes for hard-working families.” I have no doubt that Jenrick read it at some point A Tale of Two Cities. But he hints that he is Only read it. That he worked through a long and dense Victorian novel in the middle of an incredibly busy and professionally challenging time in his life. This seems really unlikely and strange. Does he want to come across as strange? Possibly. Finally, James Cleverly argued for the Tories to become more “normal” and dropped out of the leadership race a week later.

It was a notable aspect of this contest that, although the Tory membership was not yet involved and everything was in the hands of the MPs, the candidates were eliminated in reverse order of shit. (If you don’t count Priti Patel, which I think is wise under any circumstances.) First Mel Stride, who seemed like a perfectly capable government figure. Not great, but someone you can trust when it comes to booking a table at a restaurant. Then Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly, who I think are doing well and would certainly say, “I don’t think that’s the real question here,” if you asked them why they forgot to book.

Now we’re left with Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick, who will only be booking flights to Rwanda. She says some pretty extreme things. He does the same these days. He used to say something much more measured, but that was a different time. Today he says he wants Britain to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, even though it is human itself.

But why did he say? A Tale of Two Cities? Maybe he doesn’t mean to imply that he read it recently. Perhaps he is implying that he studied it in school and hasn’t read a book since. Is he pushing the old “Britain has run out of experts” agenda? Would the membership like this? “Take your nose out of the book, Starmer, you fucking idiot, and help me throw some immigrants into the sea!” Is that the idea? If so, I’m not sure A Tale of Two Cities is enough to launch his radical new anti-intellectual approach.

It’s so confusing that I’m forced to assume he gave an honest answer to the question. Oddly enough, and with everything else going on in his life, Jenrick has actually only just finished reading A Tale of Two Cities. If that’s true, I really think he should have thought of something.