By The Guardian (World News) | Created at 2024-10-01 16:40:14 | Updated at 2024-10-02 14:18:16
21 hours ago
The audience at Conservative conferences is not generally easy to surprise, but Robert Jenrick’s revelation drew some audible gasps: yes, he said, his daughter’s middle name was really Thatcher.
The unexpected diversion took place on the main conference stage, where Jenrick was the third of four candidates for the party leadership to face an hour-long interview with Christopher Hope of GB News in front of 4,000 delegates in Birmingham.
The subject of Jenrick’s daughters came up when he attempted the latest in a series of sometimes slightly limp jokes at the Tory gathering about Keir Starmer’s apparent fondness for donations and free tickets.
“I’ve got three young girls, and they’ve all been reading the papers, watching the news, and one of them said to the other day: ‘Does this mean we’re going to get free tickets to Taylor Swift?’”
As the indulgent laughter died down, Hope asked Jenrick about one of the girls’ middle name, something Jenrick had previously told him.
“Margaret Thatcher,” Jenrick initially replied, before swiftly clarifying that he meant just “Thatcher”, not both names.
“She was born the year that Margaret Thatcher died,” Jenrick said of Sophia, 11, as if this perhaps explained the decision.
“As you know, I respect strong women. In fact, everyone is female at my house. I’ve got three daughters, my wife and two dogs, who are both female. I thought it was a good way of reminding her of a great prime minister.”
Political name-giving is not unknown. Liz Truss’s younger daughter is named Liberty, a nod to the former PM’s free-market views. Starmer is routinely said to have been named after Keir Hardie, a founder of the Labour party, although some Starmer-scholars argue there is minimal evidence for this.
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Jenrick’s commitment to the Tory cause is well known. One source in his camp conceded that when he married his wife, because of the date of the wedding he went straight from it to the Conservative conference, only going on honeymoonafterwards.
