Sacking Jenrick marks start of fight with Reform

There are two ways of looking at the dramatic firing of Robert Jenrick by Kemi Badenoch.

- Simon Walters, The Independent

The Conservative leader's allies see it as a mark of a newfound confidence, which has seen her run rings around Keir Starmer in the Commons and shown she can lead them back into power.

Her detractors say she risks triggering wholesale Tory defections to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, sealing Farage’s aim of replacing the Conservatives as the official opposition to Labour. Time will tell who emerges as the winner of this explosive high-stakes clash. But there is no denying that Badenoch's statement explaining Jenrick’s dismissal is the most extraordinary I have seen in my many decades of reporting events in Westminster.