Newark by-election: Tory candidate Robert Jenrick says that just because he has three homes 'it doesn't mean I don't know about life on the breadline'

Jenrick presents himself as a 'father, local man and small businessman'



In fact, he owns two £2m homes in London and a £1m country pile

The country house was built by an 18th Century slave-trader

Tory Newark by-election candidate Robert Jenrick rejects claims that he has covered up his and his wife’s £5 million property portfolio and £500,000-a-year joint earnings to try to win the Newark seat.

Mr Jenrick presents himself as a ‘father, local man, son of a secretary and small businessman and state primary school-educated’ candidate.

But that is not quite the whole story.

Opponent: Robert Jenrick (left) and his Marylebone flat (right), one of two £2million London homes he owns



In fact, he and American wife Michal own not one, but two, £2 million homes in London and a £1 million country pile built by an 18th Century slave-trader.

Their Newark ‘home’ is a rented house obtained when he was picked as a candidate six months ago.

And his Party CV omits to say he went to a £13,000-a-year private secondary school.

Together with his director’s job at Christie’s auction house, it is just the type of posh Tory boy image Cameron and co can’t shrug off.

Mr Jenrick, who looks even younger than his 32 years, sticks rigidly to his Tory HQ autocue when asked about national issues.

During our interview at a cafeteria in Tuxford, near Newark, he is finally stirred when I ask whether, in his keenness to come across as a regular guy, he has misled voters.

To win the candidacy, he promised he would move his family lock, stock and barrel to Newark. A 250-mile round-trip to Westminster if he becomes MP – quite a commute for a self-proclaimed family man with two young daughters.

Wealthy: The Westminster home owned by Robert Jenrick

How many nights has the family actually spent in their Newark ‘home?’

‘Er, it has grown over time.’ He won’t say.

His election leaflets are also silent about the couple’s £2 million flat in Marylebone, London. It went up in value by £300,000 last year, more than twice the average price of a home in Newark.

Last October, the couple splashed out an extra £2.5 million on a house in fashionable Vincent Square, Westminster, less than a mile from Parliament, which they plan to move into soon.

On top of that they bought Grade I listed Eye Manor in Herefordshire for £1.1 million in 2009.

Mr Jenrick says he is ‘almost sure’ they will sell it and move to Newark if he becomes MP.

It is to be hoped this interview is not the first Mrs Jenrick, a top commercial lawyer whose professional name is Michal Berkner, eight years Mr Jenrick’s senior, has heard of that.

Despite appearances, he says he was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and cites his education at 500-year-old independent school Wolverhampton Grammar as proof.

‘There was no way my parents could afford to send me to private school. My grandma Dorothy paid the fees.’ Then why no mention of any of it in his Tory CV? What does he know about life on the breadline?

‘That’s not fair. None of it was inherited or handed on a plate to us. My wife and I have both worked jolly hard,’ he insists.

‘I don’t need to have a disabled daughter to know what it’s like.



Pile: Mr Jenrick's third home is a Grade I listed country manor in Hertfordshire, pictured

‘I don’t need to have lost a child in Afghanistan to meet somebody who has and have empathy and support them.’

He could easily have carried on enjoying ‘earning money and having nice homes’ but sacrificed it all in a bid to become an MP.

Come off it, he can afford to because his wife earns approaching half-a-million a year with US law firm Skadden and can pay all the bills.