Jack Rankin

The Tobacco Bill shows how we Tories lost our way

(Getty Images)

He’s having a tough time of it at the moment, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Andrew Gwynne. You see, I went to sixth form in his then patch when I was already an active, and surely irritating, young Conservative. When my more left-wing classmates were doing work experience with him (and I don’t know if Andrew remembers this) he made it clear he’d take me on too, despite my politics. I didn’t take him up on the offer, but I thought it spoke well of the man, and it stuck with me. 

That’s why I gave him the benefit of the doubt when he referred to me as ‘the hon.

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