Robert Jenrick’s viral vigilante PR stunt on the London Underground
Robert Jenrick’s viral vigilante PR stunt on the London Underground – chasing fare dodgers like an undernourished Batman with a Westminster lanyard wasn’t law enforcement, but rather low-rent theatre. A self-shot PR spectacle staged in the fading light of relevance.
This was really a display of political desperation to shake the nation out of its ennui. Because while Jenrick was playing Marvel cosplay on the Jubilee Line, his party has been outflanked and out-fantasised by Reform. The Conservatives aren’t simply losing the argument; like an elderly walrus being shuffled off an arctic cliff edge, they’re losing their place in the political spectrum.
Reform can seize the Tories’ former terra firma because it sells fantasy politics. Farage and co know exactly how to blow the dog whistle to keep the headlines barking. So step forward, Jenrick, and his hapless attempt to capture relevance in an age when performative action trumps substance, and spectacle fills the void left by strategy. But this is the problem. In trying to hack virality, too many politicians forget the core rule of modern spectacle: the audience needs to feel something real. Not staged indignation. Not low-grade peril. Jenrick tried this, but it didn’t work. Not emotionally. Not authentically. We weren’t stirred. We saw it for what it was: an attempt to jump on the populist bandwagon.
Perhaps Jenrick was inspired by the cosy populism of Ed Davey’s mooted public transport phone speaker ban (mixed in with the slapstick showmanship of tumbling from paddleboards et al). But there’s a difference. Davey understands the metaphor. He’s in on the joke – and crucially, so are we. That’s why it picks up traction.
Now Jenrick is trying to ride the wave of algorithmic rage to a political comeback, as if he’s single-handedly reviving the old “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” mantra. Knife crime. Fare dodging. Shoplifting. The unholy trinity of Mail Online comment section fury.
These are the topics that reliably cook up engagement in Facebook community groups and tabloid sidebars: “Something must be done!”Bring back National Service!” It’s a pantomime of power. Playing-acting justice for a platform that increasingly prefers outrage over outcome.
Which is why I’d like to remember the great heroic failure to Bill Boaks.
The wartime naval hero turned himself into a public nuisance in pursuit of justice. Zebra-striped cars. Road safety campaigns delivered with the same impact as performance art. Boaks was eccentric, yes, but magnificently so. His stunts were rooted in lived truth, not polling panic. We felt something for him: confusion, curiosity, maybe even admiration. Jenrick? He’s channelling Alan Partridge’s Jason Bourne impression to try and trend on TikTok. This kind of desperation symbolises the moribund state of the Tory party. The voters can feel it; less a return to law and order than the death rattle of a relic trying to reboot itself as a meme.