Robert Jenrick's Honesty-Dodging

That someone as dishonest and hypocritical as the Shadow Justice Secretary was not long ago shamed out of public life is a damning indictment of the state of politics and media in the UK

Robert Jenrick, pictured leaving the scene of the crime

With many Conservative MPs now believing it's a matter of "when, not if" Kemi Badenoch is replaced, attention is starting to turn towards who is likely to replace her.

At the front of the pack is the Shadow Justice Secretary, and Badenoch's former leadership rival, Robert Jenrick.

Jenrick grabbed the headlines this week for a viral clout-chasing stunt in which he was filmed approaching alleged fare-dodgers on the London Underground.

In an otherwise slow week, the stunt achieved its aim of getting Jenrick's name into news bulletins and discussion programmes, while encouraging normally sensible commentators to pen posts about why the left 'just needs to realise that Jenrick actually has a point'.

Quite what that point is meant to be, other than the spectacularly trite one that crime is bad and should be clamped down upon, isn't entirely clear.

However, what the row has helped to expose is something that is far more damaging to the UK than any amount of petty criminals jumping the gates on the Jubilee Line will ever be.