When Jenkyns looks astute, British politics proves it really is in a dire state
She famously presented her middle finger to a bunch of protesters outside Downing Street. So it says a lot about the state of Britain that Dame Andrea Jenkyns looks like our most astute politician. But who could argue otherwise this morning, as she starts her term as Greater Lincolnshire mayor?
What a turnaround for someone who, until now, has hardly distinguished herself. Okay, she's got a colourful past as a Miss UK finalist, Greggs worker and victor over Ed Balls in 2015. But in her early days in Parliament, she was best known as a troublemaker for Theresa May. The highest office she held was a parliamentary under secretary of state at the end of Boris Johnson's leadership. She was then booted out by Rishi Sunak, and finally lost her seat by a big margin at the general election.
But my goodness, she's made up for it all since. Jumping ship from Tories to Reform at exactly the right time, announcing her candidacy for Greater Lincolnshire late last year, catching a glorious wave and leaving the Tories trailing in her wake.
When she said this morning that 'Nigel Farage will one day make a magnificent Prime Minister', it might have sent a shiver down the spine of many. But few laughed. Imagine a Tory victor saying the same thing about Kemi Badenoch. They'd be stifling their giggles, I fear. And I'm saying that as a fan.
In July 2022, when the Tory party turned against Boris Johnson, Jenkyns said they would come to regret this 'just like they did with Thatcher'.
Don't they just. The Tories continue to pay for the rise for the 44 wretched days of Liz Truss in power, even if Jenkyns supported her.
But Jenkyns wasn't going to hang around and go down with the ship. After the calamitous general election, she knew full well that the realignment in British politics was firmly under way and that it wasn't any longer Left versus Right, but to use David Goodhart's words, 'somewheres versus anywheres'. You can't be both. And if you try to be both, you end up doing the splits. Only Boris, among the Tories, has the political agility to pull that one off.
That explains as much as anything why the Tories' poll rating, which shot down to the low 20s under Truss, hasn't budged. And it's why Labour under the hapless Keir Starmer is following the Tories off a cliff.
Today was always going to be great for Reform, a deserved bloody nose for Starmer and diabolical for the Tories – who remain condemned to the nation's naughty step. It might also be the final death knell, a middle finger even, to the two-party system.
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