Last weekend, in response to the question “What was the last book you read?” Tory leadership candidate Robert Jenrick answered “A Tale of Two Cities.” There’s a lot to unpack there. First, some background. That’s in the “quick questions” section of a Daily Mail interview that might include a Conservative Party member or two. Maybe more than that. As a political expert, Jenrick would therefore have focused on making a good impression on them.
But it’s difficult for him because it’s different from making a good impression in general. He is not courting the broader public. Even Conservative voters. No, he has to appeal to voters who make those who simply vote Conservative seem like hand-wringing woke hipsters. This is the group that confidently elected Liz Truss as Prime Minister just two years ago. Granted, the only other item on the menu was Rishi Snacks, but still, it seems like a perverse choice to a sensible person. There are many critics of Mr Sunak, but there is only one person who thinks that Liz Truss would have been a better prime minister than him, and that person’s name is Liz Truss.
Nevertheless, it is this group that Jenrick has to win support from, and at the same time, a relatively convincing one for everyone else, since if he wins he will ultimately need their votes as well. It is what it is. You can’t be too crazy to start advocating shooting a dog for urinating on a war memorial or jailing an actor for tweeting on TV. It will only be a short-term gain. This was what was on everyone’s mind when the Jenrick team sat down to help answer the question, “What’s the last book you read?”
By the way, it’s not as a reflection on Jenrick that I suggest that his answer may not be true. Try not to hold it against him, especially when you have so many other options. Politicians have to lie to some extent in such surveys. They’re trying to project an image, but snapshots of their reading habits don’t always deliver on that. What if you just finished reading DG Hessayon’s “The Flowering Shrub Expert”? Is he supposed to admit it and lock you in as a shrub candidate?
“So what shall we say?” they must have thought. “How do you want us to meet?” The fact that the ensuing conversation ended in the choice of A Tale of Two Cities is, to put it quietly, one of the most baffling things in the universe.
Mel Stride seemed capable. Not surprisingly, you might be the one to trust to book a table in a restaurant
It seems that “A Tale of Two Cities” has a good reputation as a good book. I’ve never read it, but Charles Dickens is a big name author, and it’s one of his most successful novels. And since he is long dead and has an excellent reputation, A Tale of Two Cities is definitely a valid piece of literature. And English literature is doubly English because it is still written in English by English people, and I imagine Tory believers would recognize that. Immigrant Poles like Joseph Conrad don’t come here and take all the novelist jobs.
Also, since it is written by Dickens, I feel that it is relatively easy to approach as a piece of English literature. There are more Disney and Muppets versions of Dickens’s books than there are of George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and E.M. Forster’s books. So Jenrick defends his choice by declaring himself a fan of the highly acclaimed, yet relatively approachable, British-based historical fiction. All of these fictions are thoroughly “on-brand”.
The problem is that it’s so “true to brand” that the answer to the question is ridiculous. It’s like answering “What did you do over the weekend?” By saying, “We used it to cut taxes for hard-working families.” There is no doubt that Jenrick has read A Tale of Two Cities at least once. However, he suggests that he only read it. In the midst of an incredibly busy and professionally difficult period in his life, he plowed through long and dense Victorian novels. That seems really unlikely and weird. Does he want to be thought of as a weirdo? probably. In the end, James Cleverley advocated for the Conservative Party to become “more normal” and was dropped from the leadership contest a week later.
What’s remarkable about this campaign is that candidates were eliminated in a fucking reverse order, even though members of the Conservative Party are still not involved and everything is in the hands of MPs. That’s true. (This is without considering Priti Patel, which I think is prudent in any situation.) First, Mel Stride, he seemed like a perfectly competent government figure. Not surprisingly, this may be the person you trust to reserve a table at a restaurant. Then there’s Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverley, who are probably okay and definitely know how to say “I don’t think that’s the real question” when asked why they forgot their reservation. I think so.
Now, that leaves Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick, who will only be booking flights to Rwanda. She says some pretty extreme things. The same goes for him now. He used to say softer things, but it was a different time. He has recently stated that he wants the UK to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, despite being a human being himself.
But why did he say “A Tale of Two Cities”? Perhaps he doesn’t mean to imply that he has read it recently. Perhaps he is suggesting that he studied it in school and has not read the book since. Is he pushing the old agenda that “Britain is tired of experts”? Will members like it? “Get your nose out of that book, Starmer, you son of a bitch, and help us throw immigrants overboard!” Is that what you’re thinking? If so, I’m not sure A Tale of Two Cities is enough to launch his radical new anti-intellectual approach.
It’s so puzzling that I can’t help but think he answered the question honestly. Oddly enough, and with everything else going on in his life, Jenrick has just finished reading A Tale of Two Cities. If that’s true, I really think he should have made something up.
