I would think he would stand but couldn't see him being one of the last two.
Strictly after Claudia ...........
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Interview with The Mogg
(259 Posts)I thought some peeps might like to get their teeth into this article from today's Sunday Times.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, an English Trump but better at Latin
Chris Lange-KuettnerAugust 13 2017, 12:01am,
As Moggmentum surges, the historian Tim Newark grills his fogeyish back-bench Tory friend about his leadership plans over plum crumble
Jacob Rees-Mogg came round for lunch with us last week in Bath, a suitable location for this politician dubbed “MP for the 18th century”. As it was the summer recess I thought he might have loosened his top button a little but no: he arrived impeccably dressed in a double-breasted suit with a shirt and tie. Rees-Mogg says he has “never worn a pair of jeans”.
Charming and polite throughout lunch, he praised the plum crumble my wife made for him, knowing his delight in traditional British food.
Rees-Mogg is exactly as you would imagine him to be. And these days authenticity is the major currency of any politician with eyes on high office. Only recently taking to Twitter with a Latin maxim, he gets more “likes” and “shares” for his tweets than any cabinet member, including the prime minister.
Fiercely loyal to Theresa May so long as she remains Conservative Party leader, he strikes a growing number of Tory backbenchers as just too good to be left on the back benches. Here is a man with a sharp intellect who serves on the Treasury select committee and gave Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, a hard time about his anti-Brexit advice before the referendum.
To his fans Rees-Mogg is straight talking, has disarming humour, is good on television, unflinchingly patriotic and a successful businessman from a privileged background who nevertheless understands the concerns of ordinary men and women. Like an English version of Donald Trump but with a better grasp of Latin. Does he see any similarity?
Rees-Mogg answers carefully and says that he fully understands the message of the populist revolution in 2016 that rocked the ruling classes on both sides of the Atlantic. “The governing elite in both the US and the UK,” he said, “had come to the conclusion that the only reason that people wouldn’t do what they said is because they didn’t understand.
“You see this in the shockingly condescending views expressed by some Remoaners who think that the people that voted for Brexit were all stupid. It’s a very odd way of looking at things if you believe in democracy.”
Rees-Mogg said serving the grassroots lies at the heart of his political philosophy: “As a constituency MP I am always seeking to represent the people remote from the centres of power, rather than the interests of lobby groups.”
Asked why he cares so much about Brexit, he said it is “all about democracy. Can the British people have the government that they want?
“The problem with the European Union is we can be outvoted by a qualified majority vote and therefore laws can be passed that the British people have not only not consented to but have opposed.”
Was he upset that May laughed at the suggestion of him being in the cabinet? If he is he does not show it, rebuffing the question with good humour: “I’m a back-bench MP. I’m supporting Theresa May. My ambition is to be re-elected in North East Somerset. It would be unrealistic of me to have further ambitions.”
His recent interventions suggest otherwise. Rees-Mogg put the chancellor in his place over collective cabinet responsibility and slapped down a proposal from James Chapman, a former aide to David Davis and George Osborne, for a new “Democrats” anti-Brexit party.
With his experience in business and the City, is Rees-Mogg well placed to take on the role of chancellor in due course — like a Boris with financial brains? He sidestepped the question: “I don’t think it’s going to be offered.”
Certainly, some part of the Conservative grassroots is all agog with the thought of him standing as leader when the time is right. “Cometh the hour, cometh the Mogg” is a recurring line. But others — including the former Conservative MP Matthew Parris — are not so keen.
In his Times column yesterday Parris described Rees-Mogg’s views on moral, social, sexual and reproductive issues as “brute moral conservative” and warned that electing him as leader would kill off the “broad-church Conservative Party”.
Does Rees-Mogg even have the hunger for high political office? Recently celebrating the birth of his sixth child, naturally named Sixtus, he rejoices in his large family, lives in a mansion dating back to 1600 deep in the Somerset countryside and has amassed a fortune through his Somerset Capital Management business.
Having entered the Commons only in 2010, Rees-Mogg claims repeatedly that he has already attained his highest ambition of being MP for North East Somerset.
“The local party is part of who I am and what I am,” he insists. But surely he wants to ride the Moggmentum into a cabinet post?
“I’m very interested in political ideas, developing Conservative thinking, and I’m very keen that we should have a positive message for Conservatism,” he said.
“Our last manifesto was much too defensive and much too managerial. That was why we went from having such a strong lead in the polls to having a very marginal election victory . . . The campaign did not succeed. You can have a role in that without holding great office.”
Will he never throw his hat into the ring of a future leadership election?
“I think if I threw my hat in the ring, my hat would be thrown back at me pretty quickly,” he said.
Nor will he be drawn on who should be the next party leader. “There are so many people that would be capable of doing it,” he said, “and who it ends up being, as with Mrs May getting it, is a matter of luck as anything.”
Surely he wants a Brexiteer? “By the time Mrs May finally decides to become a countess and go to the House of Lords,” he reassures me, “we’ll have long since left the European Union.”
Rees-Mogg, 48, was born in Hammersmith, west London. His father was The Times editor William Rees-Mogg. The family has long ties with Somerset thanks to owning local coalmines.
Educated at Eton, he read history at Trinity College, Oxford but regrets not studying classics: “All the really clever people do that and a 2:1 in classics is worth a first in PPE.”
He did not follow his father into journalism: “My father was much better at it than I was ever going to be so I thought I could only ever fail by comparison.”
Instead he chose a career in the City, working in emerging markets for Lloyd George Management, which included a stint in Hong Kong before setting up his own investment business in 2007.
His leisure time is dominated by his large family: “It’s the most important thing. I’ve got six lovely, delightful children. I’m very lucky. I have a wonderful wife who looks after us all.”
They are working their way through the James Bond films: “We’re on Octopussy at the moment, had Live and Let Die a couple of nights ago.
“This might not be the most fashionable view — but then I’m not known for my fashion — but I think the late Sir Roger Moore is unquestionably the best James Bond.”
It seems an apt choice for Rees-Mogg. Not the action-packed aggression of Daniel Craig but the self-deprecating, humorous Bond — who ended up having the longest 007 career.
Tim Newark is a historian and the author of Protest Vote: How Mainstream Parties Lost the Plot (Gibson Square, £8.99)
Rees-Mogg is...
DOLGACHOV/GETTY
...AGAINST
● Gay marriage
● Raising welfare benefits
● Smoking ban in private vehicles where a child is present
● Euthanasia
● A 2016 investigation into the Iraq War
PA
...BUT FOR
● Trident, bedroom tax and academies
● Stricter asylum systems and a stronger enforcement of immigration rules
● Mass retention of data from communications and surveillance
I found this yesterday. I have no idea about the political stance of the site or the affiliations of the author
www.byline.com/column/67/article/1777
Start
REES-MOGG: A FAMILIAR STORY
J.J. Patrick photo J.J. PatrickUnited Kingdom18 July 2017
Rees-Mogg: A Familiar Story
Jacob Rees-Mogg is emerging as the new face of Russian political interference in the UK...
It's 2016 and Jacob Rees-Mogg - the now increasingly prominent Conservative MP who has been linked to the so-called "Tory-UKIP Alliance" for some time - appears on RT, discussing Palestine.
"There are precious few politicians who stand out from the crowd as people of integrity who say what they mean and mean what they say. Whether you agree with them or not - you can respect them for that. This week our guest stands sentinel over these old traditions. The son of a peer and editor of The Times when that title meant something, and the Member of Parliament for North East Somerset: Jacob Rees-Mogg," the Kremlin-managed media channel fawns.
Fast-forward to the present and Rees-Mogg is bidding for the Tory leadership and, suddenly, he's on social media with an inexplicable following. The problem is, it all has a now familiar feel.
Mogg doesn't just share RT appearances with Nigel Farage, nor his social calendar, but his Social Media bot accounts and sock puppets too. These are the same Russian backed accounts which have switched from Brexit to Trump and back again, now reappearing with #Moggmentum in mind.
End
Whitewave Tue 15-Aug-17 07:47:31
pogs smearing reputations is a hobby by GN posters, including yourself and me, surely you've noticed, as you make numerous posts doing just that given the chance as do I.
It is called political debate and rough and tumble-----
Your shows that you find the fact a link was put forward that was years old, gave an impression of wrong doing by an individual was funny to you. !
So Whitewave you say ' smearing ' is a hobby of yours. It is not called debate and rough and tumble ' in my book.
I note that you have not made one valid comment re my post Mon 21.07 so I suspect my facts are correct or you would have challenged my post. Instead your attempt to oddly accuse me of 'smearing' only confirms that you don't understand , or more to the point want to understand, the fact a piece of unworthy , old tittle tattle proven to be misleading was 'again' put up for consumption on GN.
Wonder if Mogg still supports Trump?!
One must question his judgement
Maizied
"Jacob Rees-Mogg is emerging as the new face of Russian political interference in the UK..."
" Mogg doesn't just share RT appearances with Nigel Farage"---
No he doesn't . Corbyn/Abbott/McDonnell / Labour MP's also appear/ have appeared on Russia Today. In fact they were/are quite prominent especially on RT 's Sputnik/George Galloway. Actually MP's from ALL parties at one time or another are interviewed on Russia Today .
In your book are they too faces of Russian political interference in the UK or just Rees-Mogg ?
I watch Russia Today but have always accepted it is a Russian state media propaganda machine but it can have some good
points too.
Well, he did say that 'any' Republican President is better than any Democrat one so I would assume he supports him. A comment that has stuck in my mind ever since I heard him actually say it on tv [so I KNOW it isn't someone trying to discredit him]. Which is one reason why I loathe him.
Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.
That's a HORRIBLE thing to say petra 
...
Horrible? Considering some of the awful things that have been posted on here about RM. Questioning whether it's morally right that he has 6 children was below the belt for a start.
I thought that comment on his children was uncalled for, and from a poster who defends a man who buggered off from wife no 2 because she wouldn't obey his demands on their sons schooling
POGS
I don't think you read the article I linked to. It was more than just an appearance on RT.
I have no particular opinion on the piece. I just offered it thinking that people might be interested.
I merely think that JRM is an extremely unpleasant far Right politician.
I would question whether it's morally right for him to have 6 children, too.
man who buggered off from wife no 2 because she wouldn't obey his demands on their sons schooling
HOUSE!
'I think it's morally wrong that he can afford to have 6 children when other people are having to use food banks etc and yet he votes against helping people like that. I wouldn't mind him having numerous children if he didn't do that but he does so he deserves my contempt'
..this is what I said; I have no problems with him having 6 children except for the fact that he supports policies that make it difficult financially for some people to have even one child, which is, imo, morally wrong. If he had loads of children and devoted his life to helping those less fortunate than himself I might like the man; as it is, he doesn't and I don't.
tegan2 & Darnsarf
Whitewave has 'rumoured' that she 'has heard that David Davis 'likes a drink'. How the hell does she know unless she was actually there: gossip. Together with all the other gossip ( or she has inside knowledge) about JRM. She openly admits she likes smearing.
And if I can be arsed I will trawl back on this thread where she tried to stir it about me, personally, but that backfired on her when her sidekick went too far.
It's not just a vague rumour, Petra it was stated quite publicly and explicitly on twitter by Davis' former chief of staff, James Chapman.
It is certainly gossip and quite scurrilous but I suspect that Chapman wouldn't have said it so openly to so many people (54,000 followers) unless he felt that he would be in no danger of being sued for libel (or would it be slander?).
Can we all play Maizie?
Maizie d
"It is certainly gossip and quite scurrilous".
I could not agree more . That is where the conversation would end for most people who require evidence to substantiate the gossip.
Besides James Chapman /who/what/where has it been said or written David Davis drinks too much for you to say it is not a vague rumour? I am amazed how it appears James Chapman has become to font of all knowledge since he left the Daily Mail , who would have thought it .--
" I have no particular opinion on the piece. I just offered it thinking that people might be interested."
If you had no particular opinion of the piece why bother to mention it?
It is as obvious as a naked hang glider when a post is referring to another persons view/article they are aligning with their view/article unless in that post the view / article is being challenged by the poster.
If you post it you own it scenario.
I suspect that there is a lot more to come from that stable before he is finished.
The Tories are saying that he is mad.
When it comes to smear and ineundo - nothing beats a good right wing rag in full flow. So let's try not to be too hypocritical.
I will post any further titbits from Chapman for your delectation.
pogs entirely disagree with your assertion " if you post it you must agree with it"
"If you post it you own it scenario."
Where is the logic in that comment?
It's those unwritten 'rules' known only to a few posters, again.
As this is the JRM thread I wondered if anyone knew if he is on a retainer to appear on Today on Radio 4. He was back on again today when they were talking about accents. Perhaps it is the right-wing of the BBC making him seem even more 'likeable' although it didn't do it for me I must admit. I switched it off until he had gone.
Perhaps they are trying to soften up the voter, they're so short of possible leaders, desperation is certainly setting in!!
Questioning whether JRM is morally right to have had 6 children is just sheer arrogance! NO ONE has to justify how many children they choose to have to ANYONE no matter what their political leanings are. And as for " I wouldn't mind him having numerous children if....', well, how very magnanimous of you Tegan, I'm sure we're all very grateful to have your permission!
"it was stated quite publicly and explicitly on twitter by Davis' former chief of staff, James Chapman."
James Chapman seems to have had a bit of a breakdown on Twitter, with his friends calling to have his phone taken away from him. His account has now been deleted.
Perhaps he didn't know what he was talking about after all.
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