Robert Jenrick

Subject: Robert Jenrick

In danger of being accused of saying 'I told you so', well I did when I portrayed Robert Jenrick as a person who when paraded in front of the cameras to tell us the good news about the corona virus seemed to me to represent all that was bad about the Tory party. I described him as a talking marionette, a man who said things because he allowed himself to be programmed to say what ever disingenuous government statement Boris needed to be said. He seemed to lack any personality, his dead pan face, his apparent lack of empathy and the way he batted away the questions the reporters gathered at the daily news briefings asked as if they were inconsequential to the governments will.
Well he has been caught with his proverbial pants down in his post as Secretary of State for Housing. Part of the job is to act as final arbiter on decisions regarding the go ahead or otherwise of a housing project. Local government and his ministerial department are the filter for these multi million pound and often controversial housing projects and it would appear he disregarded all advice and awarded the go ahead to Richard Desmond that grandee supporter of the Tories through his ownership of The Express newspaper who appears to be filling his boots these days in the house building market.
When forgoing all the advice not to proceed Jenrick did so after a dinner meeting with said Desmond and after saying he refused to talk about the project, in fact did so at length with emails  to confirm what had been said. Housing projects these days are supposed to include a percentage of housing which is identified as 'social housing' (although this is often a misnomer since the houses whilst slightly cheaper are certainly not affordable to the social strata the provision was aimed at) and the agreed number of social houses initially proposed was mysteriously lowered from 33% to 22%. But that's not all. The date of acceptance by Jenrick was hurried  forward to enable Desmond to benefit and save tens of millions in taxation by preempting the new Communities Levy, money we can ill afford as a nation to lose after the Chancellors massive spending on easing the hardship due to the pandemic.
Jenrick represents along with his boss that dark side of the Tory party, the side revealed in the scandal of MPs taking advantage of their already generous expense allowance system claiming for all kinds of things well outside what the expense fund was set up to provide. He is what I would describe as an apparatchik, an operative who's motives are purely self orientated with little sense of the morality needed in his decision making.
Of course he is supported by Johnson who's own grasp of morality is fleeting and calls to see him resign will be batted away by a government who carrying such a large majority have little to fear.