It would be reasonable to say that yesterday was not a great day for the Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain. I mean, today's not been great so far, what with the Welsh secretary having to resign after lying about his aide sabotaging a rape trial, and the boy Johnson comparing Corbyn to a man responsible for 3 million murders, forcing poor old James Cleverly (God alone knows what he'd done to have to come out and try and defend this stuff) to do the interview round and get roundly trounced by everyone from Nicky Campbell to Kay Burley (who no-chaired him after he hid in a dressing room and refused to come out). But yesterday was a proper stinker, and not just because the Tories got found out doctoring a video of Keir Starmer.
In years to come, when the history of these strange and fractious times comes to be written at an appropriate distance, I have a hunch that the mystifying rise of Jacob Rees-Mogg will be a reasonably entertaining chapter all by itself. A man of a little learning, and impeccable connections, he's a link to a rapidly disappearing parliamentary past, where sitting for the Conservatives is simply what one does, dear boy, when one's in Town. The standard joke is that he's a stupid person's idea of an intellectual, but this is slightly unfair to stupid people, he's a few less stupid people's idea of one too, a man who chucks out enough Latin to fool people who are easily impressed by that sort of thing. But a great political thinker he is not. I well recall his speech to the Tory conference when he compared Brexit "To Crecy...To Agincourt...we win all these things", neglecting to mention that we lost the Hundred Years war, bankrupted the country, lost all our French possessions and plunged into civil war. A little learning is a dangerous thing.
And when Jacob honked out his regrettable opinions about Grenfell, he played up to one of the oldest tory tropes of all, the uncaring toff. That this was then backed up by the lumpen Andrew Bridgen gave the impression of a party doubling down on its mistakes, rather than apologising as fast as possible, by the time news got back to central office, and our Jake was forced to apologise properly, it was far too late. Labour probably can't believe their luck, were this a football match their fans would be chanting the most damning chant of all:
"Can we play you every week?"
When you hear that one, you know you're in the shit.
Now, Jacob Rees-Mogg being an uncaring, callous, out of touch elitist isn't news to anyone with half an eye on proceedings. This, after all, is the man who says he opposes abortion "even in cases of rape", who described food banks as "proof of what a compassionate country we are." This is the arch-patriot who moved his company's headquarters to Dublin to mitigate the effects of Brexit. He's a hateful shitweasel, he always has been. But because of what sir Nicholas Soames described damning as "a moderately well-cut suit", because of his otherworldy poshness, his languorous vowels and his general air of a misplaced Victorian time-traveller who just wants to get back in time to take tea with Prince Albert, he has hitherto occupied a niche in British political life as an amusing eccentric, the aristocratic counterpoint to Boris Johnson's similarly calculated act of bluff cheeriness. And as long as he stuck to dealing with arcane House of Commons minutiae it was possible for him to get away with it. But by publicly implying that he's more clever than the people who died in the Grenfell fire, however, he's flagged himself up as a monstrous bell-end even to those who don't pay much attention to politics, and that's bad news for the Tories as a whole.
Things weren't helped by the toadying of Bridgen, the sort of clammy blusterer who represents the other unacceptable face of the Tories, the provincial golf club bore. Voters look at this sort of thing, and it doesn't sit well with them. You can rob people blind all you like and people will still vote for you. You can run the country into the ground and people will still say you're the only people who can sort out what, after ten years of Conservative governance, you're still trying to spin as "Labour's mess". But implying that you're cleverer than dead people? Possibly an outrage too far.
In years to come, when the history of these strange and fractious times comes to be written at an appropriate distance, I have a hunch that the mystifying rise of Jacob Rees-Mogg will be a reasonably entertaining chapter all by itself. A man of a little learning, and impeccable connections, he's a link to a rapidly disappearing parliamentary past, where sitting for the Conservatives is simply what one does, dear boy, when one's in Town. The standard joke is that he's a stupid person's idea of an intellectual, but this is slightly unfair to stupid people, he's a few less stupid people's idea of one too, a man who chucks out enough Latin to fool people who are easily impressed by that sort of thing. But a great political thinker he is not. I well recall his speech to the Tory conference when he compared Brexit "To Crecy...To Agincourt...we win all these things", neglecting to mention that we lost the Hundred Years war, bankrupted the country, lost all our French possessions and plunged into civil war. A little learning is a dangerous thing.
And when Jacob honked out his regrettable opinions about Grenfell, he played up to one of the oldest tory tropes of all, the uncaring toff. That this was then backed up by the lumpen Andrew Bridgen gave the impression of a party doubling down on its mistakes, rather than apologising as fast as possible, by the time news got back to central office, and our Jake was forced to apologise properly, it was far too late. Labour probably can't believe their luck, were this a football match their fans would be chanting the most damning chant of all:
"Can we play you every week?"
When you hear that one, you know you're in the shit.
Now, Jacob Rees-Mogg being an uncaring, callous, out of touch elitist isn't news to anyone with half an eye on proceedings. This, after all, is the man who says he opposes abortion "even in cases of rape", who described food banks as "proof of what a compassionate country we are." This is the arch-patriot who moved his company's headquarters to Dublin to mitigate the effects of Brexit. He's a hateful shitweasel, he always has been. But because of what sir Nicholas Soames described damning as "a moderately well-cut suit", because of his otherworldy poshness, his languorous vowels and his general air of a misplaced Victorian time-traveller who just wants to get back in time to take tea with Prince Albert, he has hitherto occupied a niche in British political life as an amusing eccentric, the aristocratic counterpoint to Boris Johnson's similarly calculated act of bluff cheeriness. And as long as he stuck to dealing with arcane House of Commons minutiae it was possible for him to get away with it. But by publicly implying that he's more clever than the people who died in the Grenfell fire, however, he's flagged himself up as a monstrous bell-end even to those who don't pay much attention to politics, and that's bad news for the Tories as a whole.
Things weren't helped by the toadying of Bridgen, the sort of clammy blusterer who represents the other unacceptable face of the Tories, the provincial golf club bore. Voters look at this sort of thing, and it doesn't sit well with them. You can rob people blind all you like and people will still vote for you. You can run the country into the ground and people will still say you're the only people who can sort out what, after ten years of Conservative governance, you're still trying to spin as "Labour's mess". But implying that you're cleverer than dead people? Possibly an outrage too far.
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