The Sunday Times Magazine • 15Rees-Mogg claims not to be part of the
hunting, shooting and fishing set. His only
country pursuit, he says, is walking the
dog. He often pops into the village, where,
it turns out, they think he would make an
excellent PM. Paula, behind the bar of the
Crown Inn, says the family comes for lunch
in the pub garden. “Lovely people,” she
gushes. She gives me a beer mat to pass
on to him, to remind him of the
campaign to reduce beer tax.
Debbie behind the counter at
Bowden’s village store says he drops
in for bread, milk and eggs. I quiz him
on the price of a loaf. “It depends on
the bread but it’s a little over a pound.”
He’s right. What about a litre of milk. “A
litre?” he stares hard. “Do you mean a pint?
Pretty much since I was a candidate it has
been between 43p and 46p and it’s only
very recently that it has gone up to 60p.”
Possibly it’s his insistence on sticking to
imperial measures and his directness that
local voters admire. He has been compared
to William Gladstone for his support for
individual liberty and loosening state
controls, but the impression he gives
is of a character not from the 1860s but the
1960s, frozen in the era just before Britain
joined the EEC. He’s never not in a suit,
usually from Savile Row. Slacks at weekends?
“Never, ever. I suppose casual is a tweed
coat [jacket] rather than a business suit.”
He admits to being a secret grabatologist.
He has been going to the same tie shop in
Jermyn Street in St James’s, London, since
he was a schoolboy and doesn’t throw them
away. Pressed on how many he owns, he
sidesteps. “Loads, but I’d deny being the
Imelda Marcos of ties.”
Health fads have passed him by. He
drinks instant coffee, not other kinds, and
enjoys white sugar. Has he ever smoked
marijuana? “Of course not.”
What music does he listen to? “I mainly
listen in the car when driving. Some
military marching bands, some religious
music, some operas, either Mozart or
Verdi.” Any rock music? “No.”
Surprisingly he doesn’t disagree when
I suggest Britain is less meritocratic than it
was 50 years ago. He blames a lapse in state
schools. “We had a problem of some pretty
mediocre education between the closure of
the grammar schools and the expansion of
the academies under Michael Gove,” he
says. “People should be able to rise to the
top from wherever they come from. Social
mobility is fundamental, our levelling-up
agenda depends upon it, depends upon
education. How else will we compete as an
economy over the next 50 years?”
His own children attend private schools
in London. As well as matriculating at
Eton and Oxford, Rees-Mogg and his
boss share the same political instincts and
deep-rooted Conservative values. Some
suggest Johnson’s decision to include
Rees-Mogg in his cabinet was a case ofkeeping friends close and enemies closer.
It was Rees-Mogg, not Johnson, who was
briefly favourite to succeed Theresa May
as party leader in a poll of Conservative
members in 2017. Supporters created a
hashtag of “Moggmentum”, attempting to
ape the success of the pro-Corbyn activist
group Momentum. And it was he who tried
to topple May by orchestrating a vote of no
confidence in 2018 when he chaired the
European Research Group of hard-Brexit
Tory lobbyists. The vote failed but May
resigned, wounded, six months later,
earning him for a while the soubriquet
“faux toff with a dagger under his top hat”.
He insists he’s Johnson’s consigliere not
a competitor. But are they friends?
“I think it’s a bit ridiculous to say ‘me and
my best mate the PM’, don’t you?” he says.
“I am a great supporter of his and have a very
friendly disposition towards him. If he were
to say I was a friend I’d be very flattered.”
It’s possible the prime minister also
wanted a cabinet colleague to commiserate
with on parenting. Johnson (who has seven
children) once joked in cabinet, “I’ve seen a
few delivery rooms, probably seen as many
as anybody in this room with the possible
exception of Jacob.” Was Rees-Mogg there
for the birth of all six of his children?
“Definitely. Absolutely. Wouldn’t have
missed them. It’s the most exciting thing to
ever happen. The creation of new life. It wasreally, it is, such an amazing experience.”
Harriet Harman once described him as
a “deadbeat dad” for never having changed
a nappy. Is that true? “I’m afraid so. My
nappy-changing skills are not renowned.”
He says the children are named after
Catholic saints and Anglo-Saxon bishops.
They are Peter Theodore Alphege, Mary
Anne Charlotte Emma, Thomas
Wentworth Somerset Dunstan, Anselm
Charles Fitzwilliam, Alfred Wulfric Leyson
Pius and Sixtus Dominic Boniface
Christopher. Can he remember their
birthdays? “Are you going to test me?” he
asks nervously before rattling them all off.
A Catholic priest, Father Dom, joins us
for lunch on the day I visit and says grace.
During a main course of ham, egg and chips
— “a family favourite, requested by the
troops” — Rees-Mogg Sr entertains them
with tales of the exotic food he sampled
working in the Far East in the 1990s. “Once
in Japan I ate deep-fried insects.”
“You didn’t, Daddy?” they cry.
“In Hong Kong I belonged to a lunch
club, the Luk Yu tea house, and ate there
every Friday. Snake soup was absolutely
fine but there was a small bird with sausage
meat stuffed in it which you were meant
to eat bones and all. That defeated me —
I couldn’t manage it.”
Lunch has been prepared by Deborah,
the housekeeper, who later produces“Abortion is one of the
great tragedies of the
modern world. It is
something we should all
be desperately sad about”
He has consistently or
almost always voted against
● Same-sex marriage
● Laws to promote equality
and human rights
● Increasing tax on earners
with incomes over £150,
● Removing hereditary peers
from the House of Lords
● Stronger regulation of
gambling
● Smoking bans
● Allowing assisted dying for
the terminally ill
● UK membership of the EUHe has consistently or
almost always voted for
● Reducing capital gains tax
● Reducing corporation tax
● Lower spending on welfare
benefits
● Increasing the threshold
for income tax
● Increasing the rate of VAT
● Higher taxes on plane
tickets
● Stricter rules on
asylum seekers
● Culling badgers to
prevent bovine TBWhere Jacob Rees-Mogg
stands on the big issues
BRISTOL POST, ALAMY, GETTY IMAGES, IAN McILGORM. SOURCE FOR PANEL: THEYWORKFORYOU.COM ➤