No one enjoys a first encounter with an ex after a break-up. But surely few less so than Robert Jenrick and his one-time Tory leadership cheerleader, Victoria Atkins. The unlucky pair were parked side-by-side on the Beeb for a painfully awkward local elections post-mortem.
In an Oscar-worthy admission, Atkins revealed that Jenrick hasn’t spoken to her since he upped sticks and left the Tories, declaring: ‘I considered us to be very good friends and so it has been a great personal loss for me as well as a professional one’.
The Shadow Environment Secretary went on to say that ‘how one conducts themselves is very important’, in a pointed dig at Jenrick’s attempt to blindside the party with his defection at a moment of maximum pain.
Responding to his old political pal, Jenrick insisted: ‘The way you have trust in politics is to do what you say you’re going to do. The Conservative party is not trusted because it didn’t do what it said it was going to do.’
Mr S, on this occasion, applauds the Beeb for serving up a dose of comedy gold. Excruciating though it was, there are few things more entertaining than watching former political bedfellows turned enemies forced to explain themselves live on air.
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