“You don’t think rule-breaking at the top is a problem, it’s only a problem for those at the bottom?”
Tory MP Robert Jenrick endured a humiliating car crash of an interview on LBC, after a journalist accused him of hypocrisy over his own previous law breaking.
After going around with a camera crew, filming himself confronting fare evaders on the London Underground to highlight what he said was lawlessness in London, he posted the video on social media with the message reading: “Sadiq Khan is driving a proud city into the ground. Lawbreaking is out of control. He’s not acting. So, I did.”
Jenrick said he was “sick to death of people fare dodging” and felt he needed to “highlight the issue”.
The former Tory leadership contender caused a backlash online, with one social media user pointing out, “Newark – where this turnip is MP – has a higher crime rate than London.
“Perhaps @RobertJenrick could serve his own constituency for a change.”
Jenrick has now appeared on LBC to discuss his stunt, yet the interview did not go as he had quite hoped after Lewis Goodall pointed out the Tory MPs own rule breaking in the past.
Goodall asked Jenrick: “Has anyone ever accosted you in the street for unlawfully approving a Conservative-supporting billionaire’s housing project, which could have cost the taxpayer £45 million? Rule breaking is a problem wherever it happens isn’t it?”
Jenrick said that incident happened five years ago and said he was focused on tackling crime in the present.
Goodall replied: “You don’t think rule-breaking at the top is a problem, it’s only a problem for those at the bottom?”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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