Thomas Skinner's full English

New Statesman​

4 days ago

Illustration by André Carrilho
'I don't plan – I just do everything on impulse.' So Thomas Skinner told the producers of The Apprentice before his television debut in 2019. And as we chatted before he spoke at the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation's Now and England conference, I began to believe him.
He was grinning at me in his bulky suit, his face ablaze with a suntan like a bank holiday weekend. I asked him what he knew about his co-panellists, the High Tory MP Danny Kruger, the Brexiteer historian Robert Tombs and the ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe, latterly famous for calling for mass deportations. Skinner said he didn't know much about them. I asked him who had invited him to speak. 'James,' he replied, meaning James Orr, the Cambridge theology professor and close friend of JD Vance. But he said that he didn't really know James either. He'd simply accepted an invitation to talk about 'how much I love England'.
Skinner's very presence here is a sign of the new strategies and gambits of the political right. His name will puzzle many otherwise switched-on, urbane readers. He started out as a pillow and mattress salesman, and then after his firing from The Apprentice – one of those decent, head-held-high firings, without the usual pleading and back-stabbing – Skinner remade himself a star of reality TV. He appeared on Celebrity MasterChef and 8 Out of 10 Cats. And, to far greater recognition, in mid 2022 he started to post videos of himself eating elaborately unhealthy meals on (then) Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
These meals are generally drawn from what I think of as the Great British, mid-week, can't-be-arsed menu: cottage pie, jacket potatoes and those domesticated exoticisms, curry, chilli con carne, Chinese. And like a Dickens character reminding you who they are after a multi-chapter absence, Skinner narrates these meals in a language of cheery catchphrases: 'Don't go home until you're proud'; 'Tough times don't last, but tough people do'; and, simply, 'Bosh!'. These videos, along with rolling footage of the Romford good life (golf, family BBQs, early-morning gym), have won Skinner an audience of 683,000 on Instagram alone.
In recent months, however, something has shifted in his online persona. Skinner had always presented himself as a graduated member of the petite bourgeoisie (Ford Transit for work, red Bentley for play). But suddenly he started to post about his mates not wanting to go to church with him, about how families need more support with childcare costs, and about how 'London has fallen' with people 'too frightened to walk down their own street'. 'We need leadership that understands the streets, the markets, the working class', he wrote. 'People like me.'
Dominic Cummings immediately offered his services for a London mayoral campaign. The reactionary right sniffed out a new champion in their battle against the libs. They believe Ray Parlour can be remade into their very own Hereward the Wake. And so, here is Skinner, taking his seat next to Rupert Lowe, in an Edwardian auditorium in Westminster. Around us were the Tory boys of stereotype: legions of gelled Malfoys, spotted with misshapen Crabbes and Goyles.
First, though, both he and we had to endure the other speakers. Kruger kicked off. As he started speaking, Skinner spun his seat side-on and leant back a deckchair 45 degrees. Kruger talked about how England was the 'first nation', about Wycliffe, Bede and Alfred. And though we had been 'interpenetrated by foreigners', he exalted the great continuities in English history and that 'anyone can become English', a remark the man in front of me seemed to find oddly exercising. Behind me, a woman was resting her eyes. Skinner slouched and itched, swigging water directly from a large glass bottle (forgoing the tumbler provided).
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Next up was Tombs, who was straightforwardly dull. He talked about how we should teach the history of the country we share, emphasising what we have in common. He recommended a long march through the woke institutions, making funding of public projects more accountable and regularising the national history taught in schools. By this time, Skinner was nearly horizontal, and gurning madly on a stick of chewing gum.
Last of the old guard was Lowe. The most exciting part of his speech came at the start: his reading glasses hung around his neck in two halves, and when he started speaking he snapped them together at the nose with delicious emphasis. Lowe is captivating, like a public schoolmaster at chapel; indeed, he reads his own words as if they actually come from the Bible. He gave his usual scripture about the Blairite coup and government by lawyers. Skinner was completely lost to his phone, typing away, the stage lights glinting off his golden watch.
But when his turn came around, he bounded to the podium. His speech was titled 'The England I Love'. England is 'the absolute guv'nor', he said, home of the rule of law, the Industrial Revolution and the World Wide Web. It is built on family, graft and community: 'The single mum up at 5am, getting her kids ready, before a long day of work, but who still finds the strength to smile.' But these people have been failed, 'left behind in [their] own country', with 'kids being taught to be ashamed of their own flag'. He advocated once again for better childcare and support for young parents, as well as more forceful police (because, 'let's be honest, they're pussies at the minute'). It was simple, stirring, populist stuff. He was the only speaker to be interrupted by applause.
Throughout, Kruger was looking at Skinner warily, as though a drunk had wandered into his train carriage. Tombs was studying him intently, like the president of the Royal Society confronted with a baffling new specimen. Lowe just grinned maniacally. When Skinner had finished, he offered him an awkward, lingering but reciprocated high-five. I couldn't help but wonder what united Skinner with these three: a post-liberal party intellectual, a grandee academic and a seigneurial landowner. As the panel took questions, Lowe went further, leaning into his 'family business' (and, he neglected to say, multimillionaire) background, and championing people 'like Tom and his family'. And he was rewarded with an 'I agree with what Rupert just said', before the final 'I would literally say what Rupert just said but I'm getting hot and ready for a pint'.
Skinner ultimately scrambled off the stage during the Q&A – he said he had to take a call – and it was a good time to leave. First, there was a question from Carl Benjamin, a disgraced alt-right YouTuber. And then, as Tombs was saying something anodyne about how anyone could be English, he was interrupted by a nativist heckler. 'Ridiculous!' someone said. 'You inherit Englishness, it's in your ancestry.' Tombs argued him down, but the mood had soured. Perhaps he had just meant inheritance in the sense that these things must be actively passed down. Perhaps not.
In his present incarnation, Skinner is far too goofy for such talk. But, an hour after the social media star sprinted off the stage, Robert Jenrick posted a video with him (two hours from then, I see from X, Skinner was having spag bol at home). More than any other politician, Jenrick is desperate to join Skinner in the realm of the algorithmic celebrity. And here was their crossover, a discussion of tool theft and its effect on tradesmen.
In his speech, Skinner confirmed he's 'thinking about giving it a go in politics'. In so many ways, he's already there.
[See also: Dominic Cummings: oracle of the new British berserk]
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