The Observer
04.08.19 5Tough on grammar,
relaxed on social misery
W
hat more can we ask of Jacob
Rees-Mogg? I mean, bravo. His list
of language rules was absolutely
classic. In the soap opera of the
news, he’s becoming as reliable
a performer as the much-missed
Silvio Berlusconi , who must surely be overdue a saucy
Christmas special return. Maybe involving some of
the newer characters. Perhaps Silvio starts stalking
Meghan Markle and is discovered in a hedge in Windsor
Great Park, binoculars held steadily in his non-
masturbating hand.
I’m just throwing ideas out there – it’s fan fi ction
really – because it’s been such a tempestuous patch for
the soap opera of the news. What with Brexit and Trump
and Boris, some people are saying that the soap opera
of the news has jumped the shark. After all, it’s not a
cliffhanger if the character always falls off the cliff. It’s
no good if every new episode begins with plummeting
and screaming and smashing and more screaming.
As the literalist didn’t complain at the public hanging,
where’s the suspense?
A lot of people are really fed up of the soap opera of
the news. And that’s before we get to those who claim
that the soap opera of the news is actually a refl ection of
real events, which I personally think is an unhelpful way
of viewing anything over which you have no effective
control. Start thinking something like that actually
matters and you’re consigning yourself to misery and
rage. Hence football hooliganism.
So fair play to Jacob Rees-Mogg for calming us down
with a bit of what we came for: the stereotypically stuffy,
old-fashioned MP issuing a list of stuffy, old-fashioned
rules about how his staff should write. This is exactly the
sort of thing we all love or hate Jacob Rees-Mogg for, and
if you’re one of the tiny minority who are indifferent to
Jacob Rees-Mogg (and, if so, well done you because that
is a masterclass in creative contrarianism), then there’s
still a chance you care how English is written.
Before I slag off his stupid rules, let me start with
a word in their defence: if they are rules exclusively
for how letters written in Rees-Mogg’s name are to be
composed, then that’s OK, I suppose. If he’s signing
them, then he’s got a right to insist on whatever he
wants. He could have little hearts instead of dots onDavid
Mitchell
Illustration
by
David
FoldvariHe must
realise his
vision of
Edwardian
Britain is
threatened
by the
merciless
rightwing
positionthe ‘i’s, and an emoticon of a face being sick instead of
“Yours faithfully” if that’s how he wants to come across.
And anyway, maybe it’s part of some long-running bet –
a sort of reverse of that kids’ TV game Bogies – whereby,
if he can get to 2025 without ever writing the words
“very” or “got”, Vladimir Putin will give him a billion
pounds. He can’t risk a slovenly aide queering a sweet
deal like that.B
ut, if it’s not that, his rules puzzle me.
Rees-Mogg seems quite keen on Britain,
doesn’t he? Some would say that the
application of his political vision is
ruining Britain; it could also be argued
that the Britain he likes is a dated and
rose-tinted image, or just the Britain of the rich and
posh; nevertheless I’d be surprised if he doesn’t, at the
very least, sincerely think he likes Britain.
Assuming so, he must be proud of the English
language. It is the country’s most unarguably successful
export – the most widely spoken language in history,
an unequalled vector for communication and art. And
yet his approach to it is the antithesis of the spirit that
has made it great. In the English language, there are no
rules that supersede usage. If the majority of speakers
and writers start using “hopefully” to mean “it is to
be hoped”, rather than “in a hopeful way”, then that
becomes the word’s primary defi nition. The speakers
have spoken and the rest is linguistic history.
Rees-Mogg’s discomfort with his tongue’s bottom-up
usage fl exibility is laid bare in his restrictive stipulations.
He doesn’t want “hopefully” to be used at all. On some
level, he obviously accepts that its meaning has changed
but, for the crime of undergoing that change, the word is
excised entirely.
This is strange in light of his belief in free-market
economics. The human consequences of unfettered
corporate greed, of millions of people unsheltered by
the state from economic misfortune and powerful
fi nancial interests, are arguably almost as bad as a full-
blown grocer’s apostrophe pandemic, yet in the former
arena, he thinks it unwise to intervene. The livelihoods
of people in depressed areas must trust to luck, but in
order to ensure the use of imperial rather than metric
units in departmental memos, he is willing to exercise
ministerial power.
It’s a bit crazy. On the one hand, the tender concern
for the trappings of the old days – the clothes, the
accent, the patterns of speech, the nanny, the fervent
religiosity – and, on the other, heartless libertarianism
and opportunistic populism. Even if he doesn’t see
the NHS, a tradition of trade unionism or centuries of
immigration as aspects of the nation that he wants to
conserve, he must realise that his Edwardian vision of
Britain is also threatened by the mercilessness of the
right wing position.
Without union with Scotland and a stable climate,
there is no recognisable United Kingdom and there will
be no more cricket on village greens. This is the future
he toys with when he pushes for a no-deal Brexit or
meets the likes of Steve Bannon. His Christian faith
compels him to oppose abortion, but not to advocate
a society that redistributes its wealth to protect the
vulnerable. Surely his commitment to the sanctity of
human life shouldn’t be restricted to the foetal stage?
This vision of conservatism is all over the place.
Calling it cruel makes it sound too organised. It’s
inconsistent and muddle-headed, seemingly based on
little more than a childlike attraction to the aesthetics
of poshness, like wearing a bow-tie to eat trifl e. In
formulating his entire political stance, he has failed
to observe the only one of his rules with which I
РЕЛИЗ wholeheartedly agree: “CHECK your work.”
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