Robert Jenrick was left red-faced this week after Robert Peston slammed him for a Reform attack ad on Kemi Badenoch.
This week, in the wake of Henry Nowak’s murder, Badenoch gave an interview on Good Morning Britain in which she said the following: “We need to find what we have in common, not what separates us. I don’t want to hear about black lives matter, I don’t want to hear about white lives matter, we all matter.”
This was in response to a video from Nigel Farage in which he peddled the ‘white lives matter’ lines.
READ NEXT: Farage had his feet up in swanky private members’ club after Southampton riots
But following Badenoch’s interview, Reform put out an attack ad towards Badenoch on social media, only quoting her as having said ‘I don’t want to hear about white lives matter.’
Reform have faced accusations of misleading people with the ad by not including Badenoch’s full quote.
After Zia Yusuf was challenged on Sky News about the ad, it was Jenrick’s turn to face the music later on Wednesday when he appeared on Robert Peston’s ITV programme.
Peston didn’t pull any punches when he brought up the ad, telling Jenrick it was a “travesty of Kemi Badenoch’s position.”
As Jenrick predictably denied those claims, Peston played him the Tory leader’s full quote.
“There is no world in which she is endorsing ‘black lives matter'”, Peston told Jenrick.
He explained to the Reform man exactly how Reform had misrepresented Badenoch’s quote, but Jenrick was having none of it.
The Newark MP tried to claim the ad was actually showing how Badenoch’s position has changed, which prompted Peston to remind Jenrick that his position on pretty much every political issue has changed over the last few months.
Reacting to the exchange on X, former Tory MP David Gauke said it was “embarrassing” from Jenrick.
It’s difficult to tell whether this was a more or less disastrous performance than Yusuf’s response to the same arguments from Sky’s Sophy Ridge.