Robert Jenrick says the Conservative Party “broke Britain”. Speaking alongside Nigel Farage after defecting to Reform UK, the former shadow justice secretary called the party he spent over a decade working for “rotten”, “dishonest” and “no longer fit for purpose”. Kemi Badenoch, who sacked Jenrick yesterday, says her party is “stronger” without him. Venezuela’s opposition leader María Corina Machado presented her Nobel peace prize medal to Donald Trump during a meeting at the White House yesterday, saying it recognised the US president’s commitment to her country’s freedom. Trump called it a “wonderful gesture of mutual respect” but refused to endorse her as the country’s new leader. Britain is bringing back “Dad’s Army”, says the Daily Star, with the Ministry of Defence planning to raise the age limit for the strategic reserves from 55 to 65. Under the proposals, aimed at preparing the country for war, former soldiers will also remain on call for an extra decade.

Nigel Farage was cock-a-hoop over Robert Jenrick’s defection yesterday, says Stephen Pollard in The Spectator. The two men had been in talks since September – and apparently got serious last month over a breakfast at the private members’ club 5 Hertford Street and a dinner in parliament – but nobody expected a deal before the May elections. Then Kemi Badenoch handed him over on a plate. Yet I wonder how much the Reform UK leader should be celebrating. Jenrick has spent the past few years telling anyone who’d listen why he would never join the party and how vile he finds Farage. Many Reform members were already complaining that the defection of disgraced former Tory chancellor Nadhim Zahawi was making them simply the “Tories 2.0, ragtag edition”. Among senior party figures like Zia Yusuf and Sarah Pochin, the feeling towards their new recruit is “pure hate”. As one party member texted to me yesterday: “I joined Reform to get away from careerist shits like Jenrick. He is everything we shouldn’t be.”

Kemi Badenoch comes out of all this with her standing much improved, says Camilla Tominey in The Daily Telegraph. There have long been suspicions in Tory HQ about Jenrick, particularly since a mole on his team revealed the secret December meetings with Farage. Suspicions were raised further by his behaviour at a recent shadow cabinet away day, including profuse note-taking about Tory strategy and parroting Reform’s lines on immigration and “broken” Britain. (One Nation stalwarts Jesse Norman and James Cleverly “rolled their eyes”.) Just last week, Jenrick said he would “never, ever” leave the Conservatives. Now, he’s been “unmasked as a traitor”. As Badenoch told GB News yesterday: “All I would say to Nigel is, Rob’s not my problem any more, he’s your problem.”

🔪🤬 I have a great deal of personal sympathy with the position Jenrick finds himself in, said Michael Gove on the Today programme this morning. But I would offer a cautionary tale: me. In 2016, when I withdrew my support for Boris Johnson’s leadership bid and launched my own campaign, I thought – and still think – what I was doing was “the right thing”. But reasons didn’t matter. In the eyes of most people then, and many to this day, “the overall impression was one of treachery”.