The former Shadow Justice Secretary gazes at his new party leader after announcing a shock defection on Thursday. © Guy Bell / Alamy Stock Photo
The mis-laid plans of Robert Jenrick often go awry, (to misquote Rabbie Burns) as the former Housing Secretary dominated the headlines on Thursday, first by being sacked as Shadow Justice Secretary and from the Conservative Party by Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, before then joining Reform UK just a few hours later. The reason for the sacking was attributed to a defection speech that a member of Jenrick’s team allegedly left “lying around” – that we now know came from a mole in his team – with Badenoch saying she was presented with “irrefutable evidence that he was plotting in secret to defect in a way designed to be as damaging as possible” to the Conservatives. Nigel Farage had earlier in the day denied that a press conference in London was due to unveil Jenrick – later thanking Badenoch for sacking Jenrick, arguing it had helped “realign the centre-right of British politics”. In his speech upon joining Reform UK, delivered at a press conference in London, Jenrick said that Labour and his old party had “broken Britain”, that the Conservatives were “rotten” and had “betrayed its voters”.
Jenrick wasn’t the only former Conservative Cabinet Minister to join Reform UK this week, with former Chancellor and Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi unveiled at a press conference earlier in the week. Similarly labelling Britain as “broken” and the Conservative Party as a “defunct brand”, it was suggested that Zahawi would help Danny Kruger, who defected from the Conservatives last year, in Reform UK’s “preparations for Government”, as the party seeks to bring in figures with actual experience of Government. Not content with two Tory defections in one week, Farage also unveiled Malcolm Offord, better known as Lord Offord of Garvel, as the new Leader of Reform UK Scotland, ahead of the Scottish elections in May 2026.
0.3% – growth in the UK economy in November 2025, according to the latest GDP stats from the ONS.
6 – Reform UK MPs in the House of Commons following Jenrick’s defection. This marks an impressive increase of 1 from the Party’s haul of 5 MPs at the general election… despite gaining 3 new MPs since then… do the maths on that one!
£68bn – of spending set out in the Scottish Budget this week.
17 – Urgent Questions and Ministerial Statements delivered so far this year.
£91/MWh – the strike price agreed by the Government as they announced the results of round 7 of the Contracts for Difference scheme, which secured a record 8.4 GW of offshore wind.
400 MW – of electricity demand during halftime of the Women’s Euros final last year, according to NESO’s 2025 review. The highest demand of the year was on 9 January at 5pm, with 46 GW.
16 – the age at which young people would be allowed on social media under the Conservatives, as leader Kemi Badenoch called for social media ban for under-16s.
New high speed rail lines between Manchester and Liverpool, and Manchester and Birmingham have been announced, as part of plans which include upgrades and electrification between Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, York and Bradford. The £45bn Northern Powerhouse Rail programme comes after the last Conservative Government scrapped the HS2 link between Birmingham and Manchester and signals a pretty significant win for Mayor of Greater Manchester (and Labour leadership hopeful) Andy Burnham.
Business Secretary Peter Kyle delivered a speech to business leaders in which he set out his ambition for the UK to go 'toe to toe' with the US on growth, adding that the Industrial Strategy will 'double down on the UK’s world-leading strengths in 2026 and not only scale up businesses, but keep them anchored in the UK.' He also confirmed three new business leaders had joined the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council: Helsing's Amelia Gould, Scottish Power’s Keith Anderson and Sky’s Dana Strong.
Ed Davey held a press conference as part of a seemingly increasing trend of opposition party leaders so far this year. The Lib Dem leader launched a plan to end the nightmare of 12-hour waits in A&E, announcing a plan to “guarantee everyone a GP appointment within seven days, or within 24 hours if it’s urgent”, called for reserved places in care homes, more funding for care packages for people when they leave hospital, and more support for family carers, in order to help get people out of hospital more quicky, and announced the Lib Dems would scrap the UK-US pharmaceuticals deal.
Scandinavia was the hot destination for Government Ministers this week. Yvette Cooper visited Finland and Norway, where she called on 'NATO to step up its work in the Arctic to protect Euro-Atlantic interests in the region.' The Foreign Secretary met with Border Guards defending NATO's eastern flank in Finland, and visited Royal Marines taking part in a live training demonstration in Norway. Defence Secretary John Healey also visited Sweden where he announced that the UK will work with NATO’s newest member to step up coordinated action to disrupt Russia’s shadow shipping, ‘to choke off the funds that fuel their war in Ukraine’.
The PM was up in Scotland to announce the results of the latest Contracts for Difference allocation round which secured a record capacity of 8.4 GW of offshore wind – enough to power the equivalent of over 12 million homes.' £204m of public investment will leverage £3.4 billion of private investment, and contributes to the Government’s pledge to support 100,000 jobs in the offshore wind industry by 2030.
Darren Jones outlined his plans for an overhaul of Cabinet sub-committees in a speech at the Institute for Government this week. Bear with us, this is one for the real wonks, but it’s an interesting one… The Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister argued that that the committees had “vast mandates” that were not being used very effectively, and announced changes that will better align them to the Prime Minister’s priorities such as Growth and Living Standards, Public Services, and Border Security, alongside standard committees such as the National Security Council. The changes will be used to provide Cabinet Ministers the opportunity to have deeper conversations than were possible in full Cabinet, and normalise the attendance of “external voices”… suggesting greater potential for industry involvement.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has “no confidence” in West Midlands Police Chief Constable Craig Guildford following the publication of a “damning” report criticising Guildford’s decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a football match. The report stated that that 'confirmation bias influenced the way West Midlands Police reached its recommendation to reduce ticket allocation for away fans to zero' for the Aston Villa v Maccabi Tel Aviv match on 6th November last year. This follows Guildford’s admission that he used AI to provide 'erroneous' evidence justifying the ban. Mahmood is unable to remove Guildford from the post, but in the last hour it was announced he will retire early after 32 years in the police.
The Scottish Government released its Budget for 2026-27, describing it as a cost of living budget aimed at helping families. It set out nearly £68bn of spending, including: £22.5bn for health and social care; £15.7bn for local government; over £5bn to tackle the climate emergency; £4.3bn including investment in railways, the renewal of the ferry fleet and £200m for the dualling of the A9; and record investment in new affordable homes. One of the more headline worthy plans announced was the “mansion tax”, the expansion of the Scottish Child Payment, and funding for more sports provisions. With campaigning beginning for Holyrood’s May election, we expect much of this Budget to be both criticised and celebrated (delete as appropriate) on the campaign trail.
The House of Lords elected its fifth Lord Speaker this week, with Lord Forsyth of Drumlean due to take up the post on 2nd February for a five-year term, following Lord McFall’s resignation. Lord Forsyth, also known as Michael Bruce Forsyth, joined the House of Lords in 1999, having previously served as Secretary of State for Scotland during John Major’s premiership, as well as a Minister in the Home Office and the Department of Employment.
The Government is pulling back on some of its plans for a digital ID system. Previous proposals that would have made the scheme mandatory have been dropped. Instead, the Government will move existing right-to-work checks – such as using biometric passports – to a digital system by 2029.
Massive protests rocked Iran earlier this week, as demonstrators initially opposed to the increased cost of living came onto the streets in their (reported) millions to demand the end of the nation’s Islamic republic. Amid an internet blackout which almost totally severed Iran’s connection with the outside world, the regime reportedly opened fire indiscriminately, killing somewhere between 2,000 and 10,000 nationwide – possibly Iran’s bloodiest ever internal crackdown. Although Trump stated his support for the protestors, the expected American response has so far failed to materialise.
A debate on Ukraine replaced consideration of the Hillsborough Law on Wednesday after Labour backbenchers and campaigners declared they could not support the Bill if it exempts members of the intelligence services. The Armed Forces Bill, which includes new proposals requiring reservists to remain on call for an extra decade and lowers the bar for their call-up, was also introduced to Parliament. Meanwhile, a somewhat doomed e-petition demanding a new general election was considered, which ministers gave short shrift.
The Chagos Islands Bill plagued the Government in the Lords again, as opposition peers passed a ‘motion of regret’ (which will do nothing to impede the Bill, but is embarrassing for ministers nonetheless). Aside from this, the Sentencing Bill, Crime and Policing Bill and Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill also continued their journey, and the Assisted Dying Bill continued its terminal committee stage, which is currently set to drag on until April.
‘A Budget where the silences were loudest’ – that’s the University of Strathclyde’s Fraser of Allander Institute’s conclusion on the Scottish Government’s Budget this week, which it called another example of the SNP Government “plugging an underlying deficit of over half a billion pounds with one-off funding pots”. The report also notes that capital spending was slashed significantly, income tax thresholds have been revised down significantly for the next tax year, and it has not clearly set out how savings from the removal of the Scottish Child Payment two-child limit will be recycled into child poverty reduction policies.
Almost 40% of Brits believe the US exerts its influence mostly for bad around the world according to the latest polling from Ipsos. Almost 50% of Brits feel that the Prime Minister is managing Britain's relationship with the US poorly, marking a 14-point increase in disapproval since September 2025.
Jenrick’s banishment from the Tory Party has, naturally, flooded the internet with a range of memes, with people across the UK collectively deciding this was less a serious political moment and more of a bonus Thursday night special episode of The Traitors. Some of the favourites came courtesy of the Liberal Democrats, who, not one to miss a trick, cast Jenrick as a fully fledged ‘wannabe PM’ Traitor, confessional chair and all. Not stopping there, Farage’s press conference announcing the move was also turned into an apt Traitors moment, whilst Labour’s attempt reflected every political journalists feeling at another Reform press conference op ed this week. Hats off to their social media intern who might want to consider a change of career in reality-TV editing…
With defections arriving at pace this week and with allegedly more on the way (we’re told a turret meeting is being scheduled), Reform may soon struggle to function under the weight of so many seduced traitors... Who’s excited for tonight’s episode?
