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Conservative MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire Jesse Norman has branded as “lazy, mendacious, simplistic tripe” the speech yesterday by the front-runner in the contest to lead the party Robert Jenrick.

Mr Jenrick told the final day of the Conservative party conference in Birmingham he would end illegal migration, take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights, and stand up for British culture.

But Mr Norman tweeted afterwards: “I am very sorry to have to say it, but that speech of Robert Jenrick's was lazy, mendacious, simplistic tripe.”

Among nearly 500 replies, Coun Diana Toynbee, new Green leader in Herefordshire and the party’s unsuccessful opponent of Mr Norman at the general election, wrote: “Hear, hear.”

Mr Norman previously backed Kemi Badenoch to take the helm of the party. She and the two other contenders remaining in the leadership race, Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly, also addressed the party faithful yesterday.

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Mr Jenrick, who owns a manor house in north Herefordshire, has so far garnered the more support from parliamentary colleagues.

But pundits concluded that Mr Cleverly’s speech, focusing on his track record inside and outside of government, came across as the strongest.

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Writing in The Independent, Mr Norman earlier warned “it is quite possible that without drastic remedial action the Conservative parliamentary party will be wiped out altogether come the next election in 2028-9”.

He said the party now needed to “rediscover its own duties” and not simply serve “as a vehicle for individuals’ personal ambition”.

And he suggested future party candidates should have to “demonstrate that you were a real conservative, and show us that you made a meaningful commitment to public service, before you sought public office”.