Shadow minister replacing Robert Jenrick says Tories ‘let down’ the country in government – UK politics live

The new shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy said he was ‘sorry’ for how the Conservatives ‘handled certain things in those last few years’ in powerHello and welcome to the UK politics live blog with me, Tom Ambrose.This morning we start with follow-up and reaction to Robert Jenrick’s dramatic sacking from the Tories and subsequent – if not depressingly unsurprising – defection to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party.I’ve said as a Conservative I’m sorry for the way the party has handled certain things in those last few years and I’ve been very open about that since I was elected for the first time 18 months ago.The Conservative party will not move on and not persuade people to vote for us in the future in the numbers that we need unless we do look them in the eye and say we understand why we lost that election.Yeah, Rob’s been a friend of mine for some time. It’s obviously disappointing that he’s decided to move on, but the thing is, what we learned yesterday is the clear contrast between the Conservatives led by Kemi Badenoch and the other parties and what they offer Britain today.The public are sick of the backbiting and the backstabbing and the lack of seriousness in our political parties when the challenges that the country faces are so serious, Kemi was given irrefutable evidence of what was about to happen, and she acted very decisively. Continue reading...