JACOB REES-MOGG: A MAN FOR OUR TIMES?

"Let me tell you a joke, people. Jacob Rees-Mogg. He is one hilarious dude! He has named his sixth child Sixtus. He took his nanny canvassing. He is so posh that Latin is his first language. He thinks people who went to state school are “potted plants”. Until recently, he held the record for uttering the longest word spoken in parliament – “floccinaucinihilipilification”. When canvassing in Fife in 1997, he said he couldn’t understand people’s accents. See, not only is he funny, but he is also real. He doesn’t bother with the whole “man of the people” act because he holds most of the people in contempt. This is masked, it appears, by his unfailing politeness. He rocks up on panel shows such as Have I Got News For You, where the audience is encouraged to laugh at this anachronism of a man.... And this is what it is: like all his politics, extremely rightwing and reactionary. This politics has not gone away, but is ceaselessly repackaged. It is not a throwback. We are in its throes. As the Home Office document leaked this week shows, a British-interests-first ideology is now subsumed fully into the Tory high command. No one should be surprised by this any more than they should be surprised that Rees-Mogg is a class warrior (for his class alone) who has a track record of voting down every socially progressive policy. Far from being “eccentric” or “freethinking”, as the extreme right likes to characterise itself, he embodies their tick-box views: anti-gay marriage; anti-abortion; doesn’t believe in climate-change legislation, votes against any rise in benefits, even for disabled people; supports zero-hours contracts and tuition fees. He supported Trump, although he has since distanced himself. This is pure neocon territory. Every so often, he goes too far. I don’t mean him talking about how he never changed nappies. “I don’t think nanny would approve, because I’m sure she would think I wouldn’t do it properly,” he told Nigel Farage on LBC. Had them rolling in the aisles, that one. No, sometimes he says what he really thinks. When the Tory party was pushing for more ethnic-minority candidates, he warned against having too high a proportion of them. “Ninety-five per cent of this country is white. The list can’t be totally different from the country at large,” he said. In 2013, he was “guest of honour” at – and gave a speech to – the annual dinner of Traditional Britain Group (TBG), which describes itself as “the home of the disillusioned patriot”. It wants to return black people to “their natural homelands”. When Doreen Lawrence was made a peer, they suggested that she be made to leave the country. Rees-Mogg later sought to dissociate himself from their views, but bear this in mind: the day before he went to talk to TBG, the anti-fascist organisation Searchlight warned him about them. He went and did it anyway.... As usual, Rees-Mogg’s religious faith is used to excuse his appalling bigotry. He is a Catholic and this kind of fundamentalism is always anti-women, but for some reason we are to respect it. I don’t. It has no place in public life. Far from being iconoclastic, this MP’s views are entirely predictable. He is a fund manager with interests in the tobacco, mining, oil and gas industries. His path to parliament was Eton, Oxford and investment banking".

Suzanne Moore, "Jacob Rees-Mogg isn’t old-fashioned, he’s a thoroughly modern bigot". The Guardian. 6 September 2017, in www.guardian.com.

"Rees-Mogg’s appeal to old-school Tories is obvious. He believes unashamedly in the kind of honest-to-goodness conservatism — minimal state interference, free enterprise, personal liberty within a framework of tradition, self-discipline and family values, low taxes — that the party’s upper echelons have scarcely dared advocate since the Thatcher era. His no-nonsense attitude to the EU goes down well with Ukippers too. ‘You are either in the European Union or you leave it,’ he said on Question Time, wearing the pained expression of a man pointing out something so agonisingly obvious that he’s amazed even his thicko fellow panellists can’t get it. It won him whoops of delight from the audience. What’s more surprising, perhaps, is the extent of his appeal among those teens and millennials who might be expected to prefer Corbyn. Yes, it’s probably true that as with Boris, they find him so funny and charming they’re prepared to overlook the fact that he belongs to the hated Tories. But what I think they warm to even more is his extraordinary authenticity. In youth parlance, Rees-Mogg is ‘based’. He’s quick on his feet, comfortable in his skin, knows his own mind and is beholden to no man. Having made his fortune as a value investor in emerging markets before becoming an MP, he is in the unusual position of being able to say what exactly he thinks — and from a position of knowledge and experience. He’s also funny, self-deprecating, charming, looks great in a bespoke double-breasted suit and even better in the copious memes on social media celebrating his wit, wisdom and magnificence. Moggmentum, that’s what they’re calling it".

James Delingpole, "Let's keep up the Moggmentum". The Spectator. 14 July 2017, in www.spectator.co.uk.

In the era of Trumpian morass and Corbynesque stupidity, it is more than refreshing, it is indeed absolutely, radiantly mesmerizing and enjoyable to behold a politician of the caliber of Jacob Rees-Mogg. The son of Sir William (later Lord) Rees-Mogg, an old Etonian and a graduate of Oxford, Jacob Rees-Mogg while by no means perfect in his political views from my vantage point (I believe in taking legislative action to deal with global warming and I was and am opposed to Brexit, without mind you being an excessively enamored of the European Union), the totality of Mr. Rees-Mogg's political vision puts one in mind of the young Lord Salisbury in his willingness to uphold those ultra views which are highly unfashionable in our bien-pensant influenced age. Or in the words of Lord Macaulay describing the very young William Gladstone, Mr. Rees-Mogg can be said to be: "the rising hope of those stern and unbending Tories". It would be a tragedy if he does not become a Prime Minister, but it would be miraculous if he does in fact become one. So to sum up, it could be said of Rees-Mogg (paraphrasing Cyril Connolly on the future Lord Home) that in the 20th century, he would have become Prime Minister before he was fifty. One may only hope that he does become so (like Lord Home) by the time that he is sixty.