Four stone in a year! No disrespect to earlier weight influencers Rishi Sunak, George Osborne, Boris Johnson and the late Nigel Lawson, but even if Robert Jenrick fails to win the Tory leadership contest there is no question that, with its quick and impressive results, his diet must be the best ever devised by an unpopular Conservative politician.

What does it involve? Simply obtain an Ozempic prescription, follow the instructions, and watch the unwanted pounds melt away. Last week, Jenrick said he had taken Ozempic, a version of the appetite suppressant, semaglutide, for around six weeks, subsequently keeping his weight down “in the normal way”, via diet and exercise. He told Politico: “I took Ozempic for a short period of time, didn’t particularly enjoy it, but it was helpful.”

While it is unclear what weight loss can deliver, in the end, for Jenrick’s leadership bid, his Ozempic revelation promptly achieved what months of Jenrick videos and Jenrick Telegraph compositions have not, transforming this forgettable 42-year-old into a passing object of not exclusively negative general interest.

To add to his weight loss, Jenrick has a new Caesar haircut, an eye-catching reinvention that, almost to the point of plagiarism, recalls George Osborne’s austerity-meets-GQ makeover when he hoped to go from object of loathing to potential party leader. True, leadership by the expensively refurbished Osborne continued to be unthinkable. What else, on the other hand, can ever explain his newspaper career and seemingly unassailable incumbency at the........

© The Guardian