Is Badenoch the winner after Jenrick's Reform switch?

It is never ideal in politics to have a senior colleague defect, hurling insults as they depart, but as the dust settles on Robert Jenrick's move to Reform UK, many remaining Conservative MPs agree on one thing: it has left Kemi Badenoch stronger.

- Peter Walker

"Historically, the party has suffered from two weaknesses: too many people trying to bring down the leader, and not enough leaders getting rid of those people," one shadow minister said. "Hopefully now we're all pulling in the same direction. Losing a senior shadow minister is not ideal. But given those basic facts, the day could hardly have gone better."

Badenoch set the agenda in preempting Jenrick’s probable defection by sacking him as shadow justice secretary and stripping him of the Tory whip, leaving the Newark MP and Reform UK to play catchup with a late afternoon press conference. At that event there were slightly farcical scenes as Jenrick initially failed to appear when Nigel Farage announced him. Tory sources say they believe this was because they had just tweeted extracts of his defection speech, obtained by Badenoch’s office, leaving Jenrick making frantic last-minute changes to the address.