Latest news with #stolenTools
BBC News
13-06-2025
- BBC News
Van filled with stolen tools recovered at Oxford car boot
A rural crime taskforce discovered a van containing "a large quantity" of stolen power tools at a car boot sale over the Valley Police's Rural Crime Taskforce found 215 items in a Luton van at the Kassam Stadium event in Oxford on recorded and identified several of the tools as stolen, thanks to "meticulous recording of serial numbers by owners".The force said a woman selling the tools had been arrested and was now under investigation. The discovery was part of an attempt to crackdown on a series of crimes targeting arborists' tools across the officers said the recorded thefts dated as far back as 2018 and spanned police areas from West Mercia to said they had "engaged with local communities to gather intelligence and track down suspect vehicles", one of which had been recovered and preserved for forensic force issued a reminder for people to mark their property "with a postcode or unique identifier and record serial numbers"."Please consider trackers... they are getting a lot smaller and a lot cheaper nowadays," it added in a Facebook post. You can follow BBC Oxfordshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
Telegraph
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Top Tory ‘attack dog' or coiled viper? The Robert Jenrick conundrum
Standing in a field in Romford at the crack of dawn last week, Robert Jenrick watched as police raided the vans of car boot salesmen who were suspected of handling stolen tools. The shadow justice secretary had received a tip-off from a tradesman's social media account that the site was a hotspot for criminal activity, and decided to do something about it. As an immigration minister in Rishi Sunak's government, Jenrick was accustomed to attending police 'dawn raids', organised by his officials. Now, as an opposition MP, he had been forced to take matters into his own hands. He visited the area 'undercover', taking videos later used on his social media page, then contacted Essex Police to encourage them to launch an operation. The police swoop, also documented on Jenrick's social media accounts, recovered £150,000 of suspected stolen tools. It was, in the words of his team, just one of many recent 'wins'. Ever wondered where stolen tools and goods end up? Well, car boot sales are flogging them at rock bottom prices…🤨 I joined Essex Police as they paid one a visit: — Robert Jenrick (@RobertJenrick) May 7, 2025 It may have been a win for Jenrick personally. Whether it was also one for his party leader, Kemi Badenoch, is more complicated. Hunting for 'wins' Jenrick's unorthodox approach to opposition politics has raised eyebrows on the party's backbenches since he was appointed to her team last November. Among the shadow cabinet assembled out of the wreckage of last July's election defeat, the 43-year-old is by far the most vocal. Supportive colleagues say he is boosting the profile of Tories in opposition – which is no mean feat with Nigel Farage waiting in the wings. But others say he is, to use the perennial Westminster expression, 'on manoeuvres'. Most days of the week, Jenrick pumps out videos of himself walking along the street, often in a suit, talking about political issues he hopes will gather public momentum. The videos, shot by the 21-year-old university student Dov Forman, show the shadow justice secretary ranging widely across policy areas – many of which are not covered in his brief. Recent topics – described by his team as other 'wins' – include a man charged for harassing the 'religious institution of Islam' after he burned a Koran in the street, and the Sentencing Council's plan to create 'two-tier' rules on criminals of different races. Both campaigns produced results. The charges against the man were changed, in a quiet admission from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) that Jenrick was right to complain of a 'backdoor blasphemy law'. And the Sentencing Council suspended its new guidelines after Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, joined his calls to scrap them. 🚨Update: The CPS have dropped the charge of causing alarm to the 'religious institution of Islam'. This was an invention that had no basis in law. But the updated charging decision is still concerning. We must resist attempts to introduce blasphemy laws by the back door.' — Robert Jenrick (@RobertJenrick) May 9, 2025 The videos have given Jenrick a significant following on social media. In the last year, his posts have received 200 million views on X and 20 million on Facebook. His team said 85 per cent of the audience is based in the UK. 'The shadow cabinet is massively underperforming. Rob is not' Among Conservative MPs, there is a collective understanding that anything that lands a glove on Sir Keir Starmer is good for the party, and other shadow cabinet ministers with few social media followers and little appetite for a scrap with the Government are under fire from their backbench colleagues. 'To me, Rob's performance demonstrates the invisibility of many of the others,' says one MP. 'The one consensus is that the shadow cabinet is massively underperforming. Rob is not.' Another senior party figure adds: 'I wish more of the shadow cabinet were doing this. 'Some of the leadership candidates decided to flounce off [after Badenoch won], but he stayed to help. All power to his elbow.' The latest popularity poll by ConservativeHome, the grassroots Tory Bible, found on Friday that Jenrick was the most popular shadow cabinet minister among the party's membership, and is 25 points ahead of his closest rival, Chris Philp. Badenoch, after a bruising set of local election results, has an approval rating of zero. Three of the shadow ministers most complained about by MPs – Gareth Bacon, Helen Whately and Ed Argar – are in negative figures. It is no wonder that, in light of his performance, some MPs have begun to wonder if a shadow Tory high command is operating out of Jenrick's poky Palace of Westminster office, which backs onto the River Thames. 'Rob looks for wins every day,' says a source close to him. 'That's the mantra. He believes we have to take the fight to our opponents and that we can't just sit back while Labour fail. 'We are always looking for something where we can make a difference, force a change and be more effective than Reform. He's not afraid to scrap and fight dirty – it gets results.' 'Some want Kemi gone' One of the key differences between Jenrick and Tory HQ in Matthew Parker Street is the line he takes on Reform. Farage has made it his main mission to gut the Conservative Party and become the 'main opposition' to Labour. With just five MPs, his claim to have already supplanted the Tories is overblown. But Conservative members are concerned by polling that shows many of them losing their seats at the next election to the 'Reformquake' – and blame their leader, Badenoch. 'People have been quietly unimpressed with how things have been going for a while, but after the local election results, a lot of people are furious, and some of them want Kemi gone already,' says one MP. Unlike Tory strategists who privately describe Farage as a populist running a protest party, Jenrick has focused heavily on illegal migration, Reform's main talking point, and embraced his opponent's personal style of campaigning. He is more likely to describe Farage as a politician who should be 'sent back to retirement'. Months after a bitter US election campaign dominated by rows about age and mental acuity, allies feel voters should be pointed to the fact that the Reform leader is 61, and will be 65 by the next election. He has also gone further than any of his front bench colleagues in suggesting that there should be a pact between the two parties. In a leaked recording published last month, Jenrick said he wanted the 'fight' against Labour to be 'united' and he was 'determined' to 'bring this coalition together'. 'His own man with his own views' A freewheeling – but popular – shadow justice secretary presents an interesting challenge for Badenoch. While she benefits from his campaigning, the Tory leader is well aware he still harbours ambitions to take her job if or when she falls. One party source pointed out that Jenrick is fiercely ambitious, and has made no secret of his desire to lead the country one day. His wife, the lawyer Michal Berkner, jokes to friends that she married him because she thought he would become Prime Minister. Jenrick's team says his sense of ambition comes from his relatively humble upbringing, compared to many of his colleagues, and an early interest in politics that drove him to seek election in the Conservative Association at Cambridge. 'Rob's upbringing in Wolverhampton and his family obviously shape his politics, but he's his own man with his own views,' his spokesman says. Another source who claimed to have knowledge of Jenrick's thinking says the shadow justice secretary was pleased he had lost last year's leadership election – knowing that the task of rebuilding the Conservatives in opposition would be long and thankless. Jenrick is instead said to be something of a coiled viper, waiting for his chance to strike when the time is right. In the meantime, he has taken up boxing in east London once a week with an Iranian trainer named 'Razor Ali'. The spokesman for Jenrick denies suggestions he is poised for another run at the leadership, pointing to the fact that he was on the morning broadcast round the day after the local elections, defending Badenoch. A sense of tension between the two has nonetheless bubbled away in recent headlines about the Conservatives' attempt to gain ground on Reform. After his comments hinting at a pact with Farage, Badenoch's spokesman was asked whether she considered him to be a 'team player'. The aide responded: 'Yes, the shadow cabinet is a well-functioning team.' Badenoch safe, for now Some in the party point out that whether she views him as trustworthy or not is irrelevant, as either way, she cannot sack him without making a powerful enemy on the backbenches. Others have concerns about any future leadership bid, after his open revolt against Rishi Sunak's government before last year's election. That was when, after resigning from the Home Office, Jenrick went on the offensive, telling broadcasters that the former prime minister's flagship Rwanda policy 'won't work'. '[Jenrick] spent six months after he left campaigning against his own party,' says one source who worked in the previous Conservative Government. 'That discounts him from the leadership, in my view.' Sources close to Jenrick insist that Sunak's migration policy was wrong, and that the failure of the Rwanda policy vindicates his decision. It is also true that Badenoch is safer than her predecessors from a leadership challenge, after the Conservative Party changed its rules to make it more difficult to hold an election. More MPs must now sign a letter to the chair of the 1922 committee to remove a leader, and anyone who sees off a challenge is safe from another election for a year. 'There is no mechanism for her to go,' says one MP, who adds that many colleagues would like her gone regardless. Familiar fireworks On the miserable Tory benches, there is no enthusiasm for more party infighting, and most MPs regard the headlines about shadow cabinet competition with despair. Conservatives know their main electoral competition now comes from Farage, not Labour, and that they face the genuine threat of extinction without a rapid rebrand – described by Badenoch as 'renewal'. At some point, Jenrick's ambition looks certain to produce the familiar fireworks of a leadership race. But for now, he looks set to keep picking up momentum by taking on issues faster and more aggressively than anyone else. 'He's energetic and he wants to get out there and prosecute our argument,' says a friend. 'In opposition Labour had a team of attack dogs that went for us every day. He's returning the favour.'
