Robert Jenrick’s absolutely-not-a-leadership-campaign continues apace, with the shadow justice secretary today posting a video online of him confronting Tube fare dodgers in East London.
Jenrick went to Stratford station to castigate unsuspecting fare dodgers he filmed appearing to break the law as he claimed lawbreakers were “chipping away at society”. He also hits out at other crimes on the rise, including tool theft, drugs in town centres and “weird Turkish barber shops”.
Jenrick was defeated by Kemi Badenoch in last year’s Conservative leadership election but, ironically for a hardline Brexiteer, while he lost, he’s not got over it. The former immigration minister continues to wade into issues well beyond his brief, including Tube fare dodging (which comes under the Home Office and Transport rather than Justice).
In numerous interviews today Jenrick has painted an apocalyptic image of the capital under the mayoralty of Labour’s Sadiq Khan (who has defeated three Tory challengers to remain in the job), including the completely unsubstantiated claim that the closures of numerous night-time venues was due to young Londoners being afraid to go out.
When challenged by Times Radio’s Hugo Rifkind with the actual statistics which show that crime in London is lower than it was 20 and 30 years ago, Jenrick hit back: “I’ll call you out on that, because there is a big rise in London, as across the country, for things like mobile phone theft.”
Could Jenrick think of one possible reason, perhaps, why more mobile phones are being stolen in 2025 than there were in 1995…?
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