Ben Worthy
Sep 8, 2018 · 4 min read

Three Reasons Jacob Rees-Mogg should never be Prime Minister

Politicians with three letter acronyms for names used to symbolise progress and tolerance. Think FDR, JFK and MLK-even LBJ. Now we have DJT, which sounds like some sort of dangerous spray, in the White House, and JRM, which sounds like a mysterious hospital infection, talked of as a UK prime minister.

Jacob Rees-Mogg shouldn’t be Prime Minister. Not now. Not ever. This isn’t simply because he’s wrong about everything and has terrible views. And, make no mistake, his views are pretty terrible. He used the phrase ‘our indigenous communities’. I’m quite sure he isn’t referring to the Celtic inhabitants of what the Romans called the ‘tin isles’ (note: we revert back to this name on 29 March 2019).

It isn’t even his terrible facisty friendships. He supported Trump’s Muslim ban and Steve Bannon, who JRM met in London, went on to give a speech to the French National Front, reassuring them how racist they were just as they were mulling a name change to make their party sound, well, a little more ‘Vichy’.

It is not even, surprisingly, because he uses Latin a lot. Churchill undid the mystique around Latin for me with his famous ‘talking to a table’ dialogue and Steve Coogan then finished it off with his attempt to buy surround sound speakers from Currys. No one uses Latin except job adverts (‘pro-rata’), Boris Johnson and Alan Partridge, which is kind of where JRM is. In almost every sense.

There are actually three distinct reasons Rees-Mogg shouldn’t ever be Prime Minister.

1. He doesn’t exist. On the face of it this would be a substantial constitutional, political and, indeed, existential bar to the premiership. But bear with me. The JRM we see in the media isn’t real. As James Ball and others have pointed out, Mogg’s ‘oh Mr Darcy I’ve come undone’ routine is an elaborate smokescreen and artifice, just like his great rival Boris’ bumbling bash street kid behaviour. It is a strength. Lexit man of the moment Dennis Skinner’s insult only helps JRM’s brand. It’s no accident that Johnson and Rees-Mogg were helped up by those sniggering public school boy larkers at Have I Got News For You.

I’ve experienced it first hand and it’s very amusing. The problem is that such made up personalities can become a trap you can’t escape. The danger is, as Boris quotes, that ‘character is destiny’ or, as Aristotle said, ‘your personality is your tomb’. This creates inflexibility. Boris got found in the Foreign Office where his line in bumbling stupidity, perfected in London, fell apart. The eternal public school Englander rebel that is Nigel Farage has found this too. A person who, as a boy, sang Hitler Youth Songs. I think the plural, by the way, is important. I’ve spent a long time studying and also teaching the history of the Third Reich and I’m vaguely aware of only one Hitler Youth Song. He appeared to know more than one, long before YouTube. All I can say is he must really have wanted to learn them.

2. His suits are too big. This is two worries rolled into one. Worry #1 is that it fits with that whole ‘something bigger than reality to impress’ thing. Making an office slightly bigger than normal has a pretty bad history. Worry #2 is it tells me that no one is willing to say to JRM ‘that looks too big’. What I call the Paul Ryan effect. Is there no one around you prepared to tell you that you look a fool? If not, why not?

3. His Nappy changing. Nappy changing is an invaluable experience for a Prime Minister. The essence of nappy changing is a mixture of a Darwinian struggle and Machiavellian manoeuvre. You must stop a self-willed, egocentric who should be under your authority and, indeed, grateful for your largesse and patronage, and who should co-operate with you, from disobeying you. The stakes are very high. If their nappy doesn’t get changed, then you will all be in doo-doo, lots of doo doo. And if you fail to invoke discipline this time, it will steadily get worse, messier and harder, next time. And it’s not about brute force but guile, distraction and simply moving quicker than them. It’s essentially a pure exercise in negotiation and persuasion with a dab of damage limitation and a dollop of multi-tasking. Thatcher, you will note, had twins.

This is an important issue. I know all you JRM fans will respond with the classic defense that why should he, especially when statistically Leavers change their own underpants less than Remainers. I’ll also put aside whether it’s right or healthy for man to admit they haven’t changed a nappy, though I’d note that JRM seems to be hinting that he doesn’t do it because he wouldn’t be much good at it.Not doing something because you may be no good at it is hardly the sort of attitude a potential PM should have.

To borrow the great Robert Caro’s idea, Brexit reveals. I sometime suspected many of our loveable ‘un-PC’ rouges had horrendous views. Brexit has removed all doubt. This is what academics, years from now, will call the Morrisey effect.

Ben Worthy

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I’m an academic at Birkbeck College, University of London. All views and thoughts my own.

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