Rory Jackanory
Trust the tabloid press to hunt down a story - here's what The Mail newspaper has uncovered about 16-year old Rory Weal - Labour's answer to William Hague.
"At just 16, Rory Weal was being feted yesterday as the ‘hero’ of the Labour conference for an impassioned speech telling how the welfare state saved his family from ruin.
The schoolboy tugged at delegates’ heartstrings with a tale of his home being repossessed and the family having ‘nothing, no money, no savings’, and only the benefits system to fall back on.
But Labour leader Ed Miliband may be surprised to know he was not so hard-up after all.
For it turns out he is the privileged son of a millionaire property developer who sent Rory to a private school until his business went bust.
Even now he goes to a selective grammar school, which Labour policy opposes.
Rory’s father Jonathan Weal, 53, owned homes worth an estimated £2.25million in some of the most sought-after addresses in the land.
He had a luxury penthouse apartment in leafy Blackheath, South London, valued at £1.3million, but it was repossessed and sold for £359,000 – which is still more valuable than the average British home.
Then the banks sold Mr Weal’s £950,000 Grade II listed lodge house in Chislehurst, Kent, for ‘only’ half a million pounds.
In the good times, Mr Weal gave Rory an advantage over ordinary families by sending him to £13,788-a-year Colfe’s School in Blackheath.
But when his business ventures failed, his son was lucky enough to be accepted by Oakwood Park Grammar School in Maidstone, Kent.
On Monday, Rory electrified the conference with his tub-thumping speech, giving Labour a ‘William Hague moment’ – a reference to 1977 when a teenage Hague wowed the Conservative Party conference.
Attacking the ‘vicious and Right-wing’ Government, Rory conjured up an image of his destitute family as he told Labour delegates: ‘Two and a half years ago, the home I had lived in since birth was repossessed. We had nothing, no money, no savings.'
‘I owe my entire well-being and that of my family to the welfare state. That is why I joined the Labour Party, but that very same welfare state is being ruthlessly ripped apart by a vicious and Right-wing Tory-led government.
‘I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for that system, that safety net. So I take this opportunity to plead with the Government to reconsider their measures.’
The schoolboy making his impassioned address to delegates in Liverpool where he outlined how the welfare state saved his family from ruin.
Rory, who later declared he would ‘not rule out’ becoming Prime Minister one day, added: ‘I ask David Cameron, what does he think I should do when I can’t afford to get to school in the morning?
‘What does he think I should do when I can’t buy the materials I need for school?’
Yesterday Rory’s own grandmother described the budding politician as an accomplished actor.
At her home in Stockbridge, Hampshire, Sandra Weal said: ‘He used to do a lot of acting and I think that’s why he was so confident in front of an audience.
‘We only found out about the speech on Monday and it’s really the first time we’ve heard about his interest in politics.
‘We were surprised because we thought he wanted to go in to something like acting.'
‘But he’ll make a fantastic politician - he’s not pompous, he’s just a very genuine person.’
After the banks repossessed the family’s homes in 2008, Rory’s parents split up.
In a Sunday Times interview about his financial downfall, published earlier this year, Mr Weal said: ‘For my wife, Elaine, the humiliation was unendurable.’
The teenager currently lives in this semi-detached house with his mother in Maidstone, Kent.
He went on: ‘My father and sister are both architects. She went to Cambridge. I came last in everything at school and I’ve spent my life making up for that. It was so important to me that Rory had the best education.’
Colfe’s School is steeped in history as one of the oldest schools in London.
However the grammar school which Rory now attends is rated ‘good’ by Ofsted and last year 99 per cent of pupils gained five A* to C grades at GCSE.
Rory’s mother was a director of a number of her husband’s companies before they went bust, and she, Rory and her eight-year-old daughter now live in a four-bedroom £300,000 semi-detached house in Allington, Maidstone.
Yesterday the Labour Party was keeping a tight rein on its new star. Rory was placed under the protection of two Labour minders who were fending off the media and ensuring he did not stray ‘off message’.
However the teenager was keen to say he was against selective education, which also remains Labour party policy.
He told the Daily Mail: ‘Personally, I’m against grammar schools. I think the eleven-plus is divisive and I think it’s wrong to segregate people at that age. I go to one because that’s the system I live under and my mum sent me there.’
He said the last 48 hours had been ‘surreal’ and added: ‘The most important thing has been to raise the profile of the issues I was talking about, because it’s important for people to be aware how damaging some of the Government’s measures are.’
The Labour Party has traditionally opposed all selective schools, including grammar schools, because it believes they are elitist.
Tony Crosland, Labour Education Secretary in the 1960s, promoted comprehensive education and abolished the eleven-plus exam, which selected bright pupils for grammar schools, in much of the country.
There are only 164 grammar schools left in the country, 32 of them in Kent, where Rory lives."
So it seems there's much more to young Rory's story - than people were originally led to believe.
The newspaper doesn't say whether the four-bedroom £300,000 house - that Rory now lives in with his mum and sister - is owned or rented.
But either way it seems a tad unlikely that the young man is living in penury - as his speech to the Labour conference made out.
"At just 16, Rory Weal was being feted yesterday as the ‘hero’ of the Labour conference for an impassioned speech telling how the welfare state saved his family from ruin.
The schoolboy tugged at delegates’ heartstrings with a tale of his home being repossessed and the family having ‘nothing, no money, no savings’, and only the benefits system to fall back on.
But Labour leader Ed Miliband may be surprised to know he was not so hard-up after all.
For it turns out he is the privileged son of a millionaire property developer who sent Rory to a private school until his business went bust.
Even now he goes to a selective grammar school, which Labour policy opposes.
Rory’s father Jonathan Weal, 53, owned homes worth an estimated £2.25million in some of the most sought-after addresses in the land.
He had a luxury penthouse apartment in leafy Blackheath, South London, valued at £1.3million, but it was repossessed and sold for £359,000 – which is still more valuable than the average British home.
Then the banks sold Mr Weal’s £950,000 Grade II listed lodge house in Chislehurst, Kent, for ‘only’ half a million pounds.
In the good times, Mr Weal gave Rory an advantage over ordinary families by sending him to £13,788-a-year Colfe’s School in Blackheath.
But when his business ventures failed, his son was lucky enough to be accepted by Oakwood Park Grammar School in Maidstone, Kent.
On Monday, Rory electrified the conference with his tub-thumping speech, giving Labour a ‘William Hague moment’ – a reference to 1977 when a teenage Hague wowed the Conservative Party conference.
Attacking the ‘vicious and Right-wing’ Government, Rory conjured up an image of his destitute family as he told Labour delegates: ‘Two and a half years ago, the home I had lived in since birth was repossessed. We had nothing, no money, no savings.'
‘I owe my entire well-being and that of my family to the welfare state. That is why I joined the Labour Party, but that very same welfare state is being ruthlessly ripped apart by a vicious and Right-wing Tory-led government.
‘I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for that system, that safety net. So I take this opportunity to plead with the Government to reconsider their measures.’
The schoolboy making his impassioned address to delegates in Liverpool where he outlined how the welfare state saved his family from ruin.
Rory, who later declared he would ‘not rule out’ becoming Prime Minister one day, added: ‘I ask David Cameron, what does he think I should do when I can’t afford to get to school in the morning?
‘What does he think I should do when I can’t buy the materials I need for school?’
Yesterday Rory’s own grandmother described the budding politician as an accomplished actor.
At her home in Stockbridge, Hampshire, Sandra Weal said: ‘He used to do a lot of acting and I think that’s why he was so confident in front of an audience.
‘We only found out about the speech on Monday and it’s really the first time we’ve heard about his interest in politics.
‘We were surprised because we thought he wanted to go in to something like acting.'
‘But he’ll make a fantastic politician - he’s not pompous, he’s just a very genuine person.’
After the banks repossessed the family’s homes in 2008, Rory’s parents split up.
In a Sunday Times interview about his financial downfall, published earlier this year, Mr Weal said: ‘For my wife, Elaine, the humiliation was unendurable.’
The teenager currently lives in this semi-detached house with his mother in Maidstone, Kent.
He went on: ‘My father and sister are both architects. She went to Cambridge. I came last in everything at school and I’ve spent my life making up for that. It was so important to me that Rory had the best education.’
Colfe’s School is steeped in history as one of the oldest schools in London.
However the grammar school which Rory now attends is rated ‘good’ by Ofsted and last year 99 per cent of pupils gained five A* to C grades at GCSE.
Rory’s mother was a director of a number of her husband’s companies before they went bust, and she, Rory and her eight-year-old daughter now live in a four-bedroom £300,000 semi-detached house in Allington, Maidstone.
Yesterday the Labour Party was keeping a tight rein on its new star. Rory was placed under the protection of two Labour minders who were fending off the media and ensuring he did not stray ‘off message’.
However the teenager was keen to say he was against selective education, which also remains Labour party policy.
He told the Daily Mail: ‘Personally, I’m against grammar schools. I think the eleven-plus is divisive and I think it’s wrong to segregate people at that age. I go to one because that’s the system I live under and my mum sent me there.’
He said the last 48 hours had been ‘surreal’ and added: ‘The most important thing has been to raise the profile of the issues I was talking about, because it’s important for people to be aware how damaging some of the Government’s measures are.’
The Labour Party has traditionally opposed all selective schools, including grammar schools, because it believes they are elitist.
Tony Crosland, Labour Education Secretary in the 1960s, promoted comprehensive education and abolished the eleven-plus exam, which selected bright pupils for grammar schools, in much of the country.
There are only 164 grammar schools left in the country, 32 of them in Kent, where Rory lives."
So it seems there's much more to young Rory's story - than people were originally led to believe.
The newspaper doesn't say whether the four-bedroom £300,000 house - that Rory now lives in with his mum and sister - is owned or rented.
But either way it seems a tad unlikely that the young man is living in penury - as his speech to the Labour conference made out.
