Civil War Boffin Robert Jenrick Hopes His Tory Right "Revelation" Takes Him To Victory

Unashamedly provincial in his background but now with multi-million-pound properties, taking the battle to Ukip and now Reform, and trying Ozempic but turning to running along the Thames to keep fit.

Ex-immigration minister Robert Jenrick has doubters over his apparent ‘conversion’ to the right, but wins plaudits for representing Conservative values.

Robert Jenrick, 42, grew up in Herefordshire and Shropshire, going to the independent fee-paying Wolverhampton Grammar School – paid for by his grandmother, using a life insurance payment after the death of his grandfather. His father Bill was a gas fitter who left school at 16 for an apprenticeship, and his mother Jenny worked as a secretary. As children, Jenrick and his sister, Jane, would earn pocket money by polishing the brass on the fireplaces in his father’s shop. Bill, aged 84, still goes to his office every day and works full time running his fireplace business. Jenrick often helps out now that his dad is older, providing business advice.

In 1997, following Tony Blair’s landslide victory, Jenrick joined the Conservative Party at 16 years old. He studied history at St John’s College, Cambridge – the first generation of his family to attend university – where he gained a first-class degree in history, meeting his future ministerial boss Suella Braverman at freshers’ week. At the time Jenrick wrote for the student newspaper Varsity and, aged 19, when asked what he would like to be in 10 years’ time, replied: “A millionaire businessman fighting my first election to Parliament.” That he did, arriving in Parliament aged 32, just a few years behind schedule.

On graduating, Jenrick trained as a lawyer in Birmingham, moving back home with his parents to save money while he