Britain deserves better, bawls Jenrick, eyes riveted to his click counter

Telegraph

2 days ago

Robert Jenrick is getting the taste for Opposition by video. After his vigilante mission against fare-dodgers on the London Underground earned 15 million views last week, the shadow justice secretary turned his wobbly lens on another irritation on Tuesday with a two-minute harrumph about the Attorney General.
Lord Hermer, an old pal of Sir Keir Starmer from his days of wiggery, has defended some pretty rotten folk, Bobby J said, walking past a rogues' gallery of portraits. Gerry Adams, Shamima Begum and so on. 'Not one, not two, not three, not four but FIVE terrorists linked to al-Qaeda!' he said, making it sound like a detergent commercial.
Jenrick is certainly versatile, one week chasing wrong'uns like he's the new Roger Cook, hoping to get beaten up and win a Bafta; the next channelling Barry Scott from the Cillit Bang adverts. 'BANG! And the scum is gone!'
Lord Hermer says it's the cab-rank rule, Jenrick went on, hailing 'Gary the Cabbie' to explain that this means you have to take the first customer in line. (Gary should have a word with those colleagues who won't go south of the river after 10pm.) But it doesn't apply for Hermer. He's a ' top human rights lawyer' – and he emphasised the 'top' so it stung – which means he can pick and choose his fares. 'Britain deserves better,' Jenrick concluded with a sad face and an eye on his click-counter.
He was in action in the Commons, too, with four volleys at the Government front bench with justice questions. Alex Davies-Jones, a junior minister from Pontypridd, took the first one about differential sentencing, with Jenrick asking if Britain was safer by giving early release to machete-wielders but not to brainless tweeters.
Davies-Jones certainly likes to give early release to her words. She speaks very rapidly, like a racing commentator, so that only brief phrases can be understood. 'It's Rack and Ruin out first, followed by Total Collapse Of Our Justice System,' she said. 'Then it's Short Memories, fading fast, with Difficult Decisions coming up on the rail and it's Bold and Ambitious just getting home by a nose from Plan for Change.'
Jenrick's other salvos were answered by the boss, Shabana Mahmood, who prefers question time to be a combat sport. When Mr Speaker told her to be 'more punchy' in her answers, she responded by slipping lead into her glove. To her shadow's suggestion that the Government has lost control of the borders, she huffed about the 'almighty mess' she had to clean up and rebuked Jenrick for having 'suddenly found his voice' after a decade of silence in office.
She then switched to withering, saying 'let me give him a much-needed education' when Jenrick suggested prison officers would be killed on her watch if she didn't put dangerous prisoners in solitary confinement and asked if he 'ever paid any attention to detail' when he inquired why the UK had not joined nine countries in writing a letter calling for urgent reform of the European Convention on Human Rights. 'It was sent by EU member states and we are no longer a member,' she said.
One Tory who has been looking at the detail is Andrew Snowden, MP for Fylde. Mahmood recently raised eyebrows by saying that paedophiles who get early release should be castrated. 'It turns out to be nothing more than taking some pills,' a disappointed Snowden complained, perhaps preferring a firm clap with a pair of bricks. Mahmood promised him that she will 'pull every lever' to deal with sex offending. I suspect some will only be happy if she meant it in the Albert Pierrepoint sense.