FORMER housing secretary Robert Jenrick has said that MPs not voting for Rishi Sunak would be making a mistake comparable to voting for Jeremy Corbyn.
Asked why Mr Sunak was unpopular among Tory grass roots, he told GB News: “Well, I think the polls are quite fluid in honesty….
“I certainly hope is that Rishi Sunak will receive the most or close to it, have the support of his parliamentary colleagues and I think that matters, because we are at the end of the day, the people who have seen these candidates up front for months or by case years and are able to judge their intellectual ability, their ability to get things done in government, how good they are at the despatch box in the House of Commons, how capable they are at communicating in interviews like this.
“And Rishi certainly from the start of this contest has always been ahead in that regard. The second thing I’d say is that the polls of members of the public do seem to suggest that Rishi Sunak is the best known, the most liked and respected of the leading candidates and political parties that choose leaders who they might like but which are not the most respected by the general public do tend to come a cropper at the polls.
“We’ve seen that with the Labour Party when they made the big mistake of choosing Jeremy Corbyn.
“Now that was an extreme example. It’s not, you know, it’s not to compare our candidates with him. We’ve got some very talented people who are likely to go forward to the final two, but I do think we’ve got to be focused on who is able to run the country and who is able to beat Kier, Starmer, and the polls suggest that among the general public that Rishi Sunak is best place to do that.”
Mr Jenrick clashed with presenter Bev Turner after she suggested Mr Sunak would focus on his own globalist interests as Prime Minister.
He said: “Well, I think that’s with all due respect complete rubbish.
“Yes, I think Rishi Sunak would be a very capable representative and ambassador for the UK on the international stage. He’s very adept at that.
“You’ve seen that in the various interventions he’s done with finance ministers and so on around the world. He is someone who’s lived and worked in the United States who’s married to somebody who he met in the US who is of Indian origin.
All of that I think is wholly positive and good for the country. That we’d have a Prime Minister who is capable of being a major figure on the international stage and has a global perspective.
He added: “But at its heart, Rishi Sunak is a traditional Tory. The things that impressed me when we were first elected together were the fact that he was someone who really understood business and free markets, who wanted to cut taxes and create a smaller, more nimble state who thought very deeply about how the economy can change and adapt in the years ahead, using his experience as an investor and knowledgeable about technology
“All of those things will be really beneficial for the country, if he were to become Prime Minister but whether he is somebody who has made money in business or is married to somebody whose dad did, I don’t think that’s very Conservative.
“If we start to say that that’s a disqualification for high office I mean, for goodness sake.”
He continued: “Well, one of the big challenges we’ve got is how do we grow the economy? We’ve had 10 years or more of low growth under multiple Prime Ministers and Chancellor’s how are we actually going to get this country fired up again, and to have a Prime Minister who understands the economy, who’s founded successful businesses, who’s invested in start-ups and technology businesses, seems to me to be a really good thing for the future of the country.
“But if your question is, do you think that Rishi Sunak can understand, empathise with and support hard working people which I think is an important and valid question of any of the candidates?
“Because at the end of the day, that’s what we really need as a prime minister and the cost-of-living crisis. I would just say, look at what he did during the pandemic, and there he stepped in overnight.
“He understood how challenging this might be for people and he created the furlough scheme, and the other scheme supports more businesses.
“I’m not sure everyone would have done that on that scale or in such a nimble manner as he managed to do and that supported millions of people’s livelihoods and millions of small businesses so judge a man or woman on their record, and Rishi, his record in that regard is very strong.”
