‘Macho man’ lands blows on ‘Ozempic man’ in round two of Tory leadership chats
It was round two of the Tory leadership fireside chats.
After “posh boy” Tom Tugendhat and “working class” Kemi Badenoch, it was the turn of “Ozempic man” and “macho man”.
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Robert Jenrick, who took the weight loss drug for six weeks, changed his diet, exercised and lost four stone, was taking on the barrel-chested strongman James Cleverly, who does press-ups for fun.
And on the evidence of this confident, swaggering performance, Mr Cleverly may be muscling his way into the final two candidates who will contest the leadership in the final ballot of Tory members.
Without mentioning Mr Jenrick by name, “macho man” made several attacks on “Ozempic man” and boastfully told the audience he was a winner and they couldn’t afford to elect any of the other three candidates to replace Rishi Sunak.
It was Mr Jenrick, all slick, measured and media-trained, who went first and began with the disclosure that the middle name of his second daughter, Sophia, is Thatcher, because she was born the year Mrs Thatcher died.
Yes, really. There were gasps of astonishment from the Thatcher-loving audience. Could this really be true? Yes, apparently.
Robert Jenrick and wife Michal Berkner during the Conservative Party Conference. Pic: PA
But Mr Jenrick then had a good joke at Sir Keir Starmer’s expense. His daughter had asked if he’d get free Taylor Swift tickets if he becomes leader. “No, that’s only leaders of the Labour Party,” he said.
Challenged by interviewer Christopher Hope if he’d turn down freebies if he became leader, he looked startled. He’d have to say yes, he conceded. He may live to regret that!
Later, asked the same question, Mr Cleverly was having none of that. “Yes, every now and then!” he said. The man has no shame!
Mr Jenrick had a good gag, too, when asked about a deal with Nigel Farage and Reform UK. “I don’t think the party could afford the bar bill if we allowed Nigel Farage back in,” he said.
And then, when asked which of his Tory colleagues he’d like to see in the BBC reality game show The Traitors, he quipped: “Michael Gove has left Parliament!”
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Poor Mr Gove is the butt of a lot of Tory jokes in Birmingham this week. He’ll surely have his revenge in the columns of the Spectator magazine now he’s editor.
Mr Jenrick backed a shorter leadership contest so the winner could oppose the Budget in October and also the return of grammar schools. All the candidates love grammar schools.
Then came a story about Mr Jenrick’s own humble origins, the sort of story we’re also used to from political leaders these days. He grew up in a “working class background”, he claimed. Don’t they all? (Well, not Tom Tugendhat, obviously.)
“Money was quite tight in our household,” Mr Jenrick said. “My mum and dad quit their job and set up a small business, and it didn’t prosper initially. I went to a state primary school, and my granddad died.
“And my grandmother, who was not a wealthy person herself, decided instead of going on a cruise or doing anything else you might do with some money to spend that money putting my sister and I through a private school. It wasn’t Eton. It was Wolverhampton Grammar School.”
It was “an innately Conservative story”, he claimed. “And we should never bow to the politics of envy,” he said. “We should respect people who make decisions like that.”
And then it was time for Mr Cleverly, who strode on to the stage like a heavyweight boxer entering the ring. He does, of course, have the physique of a heavyweight boxer, which helps give him his swagger.
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But he told his own humble beginning story, too. He said he went to a private fee-paying school which used to be a grammar school.
And then he claimed: “Because my parents could only afford one set of school fees, that’s why I’m an only child. Genuinely, that’s the sacrifice my parents made to pay for my education.”
Two grammar school boys, then, funded by sacrifices made by their family. We’ll no doubt hear more about this when they make their big speeches on the final day of this conference.
Later Mr Cleverly told, in a very amusing way that made the audience laugh, his own family history. “I’m the child of migrant families, on both sides of my family,” he said.
“My mum came here from Sierra Leone in west Africa in 1966 and my dad’s family came here from northern France in 1066.”
Mr Cleverly, however, doesn’t do modesty. He spoke about “when I’m leader” rather than “if”. Nor is he shy about talking about himself. He must have said “I” up to 100 times during his hour on the stage.
“I am the only one who has run a great office of state,” he began by reminding his audience. “In fact, I’m the only one that has run two great offices of state and delivered in both of them.
“I’m the only one who has been chairman of the Conservative party. I’m the only one who’s been instrumental in winning a general election.”
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He was self-deprecating only in answer to two questions, first on his widely reported off-colour jokes about the date rape drug Rohypnol. “I messed up,” he confessed.
And second, when he was asked if he had any skeletons in his cupboard. He referred to a 2015 interview in which he admitted watching online porn and marijuana.
Then came the not-so-subtle attacks on Mr Jenrick. “It’s very now fashionable to be a Brexiteer,” he said. “I was doing it before it was cool.”
On Mr Jenrick resigning from the government over the Rwanda policy, he said: “I didn’t run away from problems, I deal with problems.”
And on Mr Jenrick wearing a “Hamas are terrorists” hoodie, he said: “I think it was Margaret Thatcher who said ‘You don’t need to wear a T-shirt to show what your principles are’.”
Ouch! The heavyweight had landed some effective blows on his opponent. And he ended by declaring: “When I’m in the final two.”
Was this second round of the fireside chats a preview of the final two in the leadership contest? Is Mr Cleverly going to repeat David Cameron’s triumph of the 2005 Tory conference, when his performance saw him transformed from outsider to front runner?
Given the reaction of many in the audience as they left the hall – “Cleverly nailed it”, several activists told Sky News – “macho man” may not have delivered a knock-out blow on “Ozempic man”. But he certainly won on points.
In 2019, nine men were jailed for raping and abusing two teenage girls living in a children’s home in Bradford.
One of the victims, Fiona Goddard, says more than 50 men raped her.
When the government began to talk about offering councils money for local inquiries, Fiona hoped Bradford would be one of the first to take up the offer. But there didn’t seem to be much enthusiasm.
The council was quick to point out that there had already been an independent case review into Fiona’s case, along with four other victims.
This, then, was Fiona’s first reasoning for wanting a national inquiry: The council felt it had done all that needed to be done. Fiona didn’t.
The Independent review, published in July 2021, found that while in the children’s home, Fiona “went missing almost on a daily basis”. The police attitude was that she could look after herself – she was “street-wise”.
There was “agreement by all agencies that Fiona was either at risk of Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) or actively being sexually abused and exploited”. But “this was not addressed by any single agency”.
And “when Fiona became pregnant at the age of 15, there was little curiosity or enquiry who the father was”.
So, obvious failings were discovered.
The predictable response was that lessons had been learned and new processes put in place. But no one seemed to be held accountable.
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Ms Goddard told Sky News: “In my serious case review she [Jane Booth, the independent chair] found seven incidences at least, in them records that she found, of them not reporting sexual abuse or rape or assault, from as young as eight years old, and one of the incidences I literally turned up covered in blood and they didn’t report it.
“That is not just misunderstanding a crime, that is making intentional decisions not to report the sexual abuse of a child.”
She adds: “Let’s not forget, these people still work within social services and the police force.”
Not only did this Independent review not satisfy Fiona, but it also didn’t begin to reflect the levels and scale of abuse Fiona had experienced outside of Bradford.
‘I literally turned up covered in blood and they didn’t report it,’ Fiona says
Asked where she was trafficked to, Fiona rattles off a list of cities.
“Blackburn, Rotherham, Rochdale, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Oldham – never Telford, I’d never even heard of Telford until it all came out if I’m honest – Nottingham, Oxford.”
Then she remembers she didn’t go to Oxford – men from Oxford came to her – but the point is made.
Local enquiries can’t possibly begin to explore the networks of men who traffic women, often down routes of drug trafficking being done by the same gangs.
Bradford Council told Sky News it contributed to the national Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) and published more than 70 reports where child sexual exploitation was discussed and has implemented findings from the independent local review which included Fiona’s case.
Fiona believes there are numerous connections leading back to Bradford – but victims from each city often believe their abusers are at the centre of it.
We’ve spoken to grooming victims across the country, and in 2022, a case was reopened in Humberside after a Sky News investigation, where we found diary entries, texts, photos, and school reports all indicating that teenage victims had been abused.
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One of them was “Anna”, who also wants a national inquiry. She believes there is a national pattern of police forces not believing victims or even criminalising them instead.
Obtaining her own police records using a Subject Access Request (SAR), Anna found officers’ attitudes towards her were similar to what we heard with Fiona in Bradford, blaming her abuse and injuries on “lifestyle choices of her own”.
Anna said: “Every time I look at my Subject Access Request, I still think it’s shocking.
“It was the same sort of terminology – lifestyle choices, liar, attention seeker, and the majority of it was negative.
“It was really rare that I’d come across something where they were actually listening or they were concerned.”
Humberside Police told us: “As the investigation is active, it is imperative we protect its integrity; as such are unable to comment on aspects of the investigation as this could impact or jeopardise any criminal or judicial proceedings.”
But it is years now since Anna first reported her abuse, and she believes the police have left it too late to gather evidence.
She told Sky News: “I think it’s either happening everywhere, or young people have been taken everywhere.
“I think the attitudes of the professionals, the police, social services, from what I’ve heard and seen, they seem very similar in every area.”
The government-commissioned rapid review by Baroness Casey is due to be published next week and is expected to call for a national inquiry into grooming gangs.
Like Anna and Fiona, many victims will welcome Sir Keir Starmer’s early response accepting the recommendation.
They will want the inquiry to probe into the operations of the perpetrators – who they are and how they are connected.
But they will also want clear accountability of the people and organisations who failed to act when they reported their abuse – and an understanding of why, so often, authorities fail to protect these vulnerable girls.
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