Robert Jenrick with Oliver Cooper, the then leader of the Camden Conservatives, in Belsize Park during the coronavirus crisis

READERS may recall Rob Jenrick urging people to “get out there and not waste the summer” on a ministerial visit to the Belsize Village “streatery” during the Covid pandemic.

The visit was promo­ting the government’s Eat Out to Help Out policy, later criticised as “callous and reckless” for spreading infection by bereaved families.

It came after Mr Jenrick had been briefly thrust into the national limelight as the senior minister dispensing pandemic advice from a Union Jack-clad podium during those ever-so important daily announcements on TV.

He no doubt felt Churchillian at the time but there was a distinct air of the lost schoolboy about those addresses, which were swiftly cancelled.

There was a wistful twinkle in the eye when I asked him at the Streatery if he was missing his time as the big cheese on the podium?

Certainly one who craves the limelight, it’s no surprise to find him as one of the front runners in the Tory Party leadership race.