‘Ordinary lad’ Jenrick is still Tory frontrunner – but for how long?

Mr Jenrick and Ms Merkner walk down a flight of steps
Robert Jenrick attends the Tory conference with his wife Michal Berkner - Neil Hall/EPA-EFE

Rob Jenrick sweeps through the Tory conference with an entourage barely out of school. Cocky and adolescent; an untucked shirt. Less Reservoir Dogs, more Reservoir Pups: “Get out of the way for Mr Blue!”

He’s the frontrunner, but for how long? Both Bobby and Kemi have said controversial things this week, causing delegates to take a second look at those so-called “outsiders”.

Norman Mailer once described Jack Kennedy’s 1960 convention as “Superman comes to the supermarket”. Well, the Tories have yet to find a hero, but the conference surely resembles a branch of Asda, littered with T-shirts, tote bags, badges and flasks. It can’t be long before we discover all this tat was made by non-unionised Burmese children.

“At midday, Tom Tugendhat will be handing out campaign hats in aisle three.” Tom looks mad by this point, with the thousand-yard stare of a candidate who has shaken so many hands, and pretended to recognise so many friends, that he probably greets his wife at the hotel breakfast buffet with: “Have you come far?”

Tom: “Hello, how are you?” Me: “I spoke to you five minutes ago, dear.” He talks to me but also through me – X-ray vision – lest a voter pass by uncanvassed.

The closest thing in Birmingham to an actual, physical Superman is James Cleverly. Take a left at the yoghurts, a right at poultry, and there he is doing press-ups for the cameras.

Cleverly is physically impressive, with a broad chest and strong arms, though I’d put a fiver on a girdle doing some of the work. His ego could fill the room. His jokes always seem to end with “needless to say, I had the last laugh”.

At a primetime Q&A in the main hall, he is asked when he first looked in the mirror and saw a prime minister, and one can read him thinking “every day since I can remember”. “I’m an open book,” he says. It’s a Mills & Boon in which he falls in love with himself.

But I’m starting to see the attraction. He’s refreshingly blunt. Asked if he’d accept freebies, Cleverly says yes and waggles his glasses. Reminded of Jenrick resigning over Rishi Sunak’s handling of the Rwanda plan, he growls: “I don’t run away from problems, I deal with problems.” Big cheer for that.

He wants Reform voters but no deal with its leadership: “This is my family,” he says, waving his arms at the members, “this is my clan.” For the average Conservative, who admires strength, the suggestion that he will literally punch and batter his way into No 10 is appealing.

By contrast, when Jenrick sat down for his turn, the compere said the session would last an hour and the lady next to me exclaimed: “Oh God! It’s too long.” (She was, I deduced from her lanyard, a Jenrick supporter.) His goal was to appear humble, an ordinary lad with a passion for borders, who when asked to opt between doughnuts and Ozempic, chose the doughnuts. (“That’s why I needed the Ozempic.”)

He’s handsome, he’s witty – but yet to escape the charge of being “generic”. Members fear that if Jenrick were to dash into a phone booth and tear off his suit, there’d be another suit underneath.