Why the sun is setting on Jenrick's bid for Tory leader

Overshadowed somewhat by the Budget, the US presidential election, wars in the Middle East and even the national debate on how to keep pets calm on fireworks night, the Conservative Party leadership contest is reaching a crescendo.

- SEAN O'GRADY

Individual party members are voting, and the result will be announced on Saturday. In these final days, candidates Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are making a final push for support and Jenrick has been saying some more controversial stuff…

What’s ‘Bobby J’ on about now?

The British empire. Piling into the latest culture war – this time over whether Britain should pay reparations for slavery – Jenrick has gone on the offensive, in all senses of the term. Rather than saying sorry for the slave trade and centuries of brutal oppression and plunder, Jenrick says Britain’s former colonies should be thanking their former imperial masters because they “owe us a debt of gratitude for the inheritance we left them” in the form of legal and democratic institutions”. He adds: “The territories colonised by our empire were not advanced democracies. Many had been cruel, slave-trading powers. Some had never been independent. The British empire broke the long chain of violent tyranny as we came to introduce – gradually and imperfectly – Christian values.”

Is he right?