The Dangerous Poison Behind Rees-Mogg’s Façade

It’s easy to get caught up in mocking Jacob Rees-Mogg. Many of us have done so but in doing so we can miss opportunities to expose something more sinister than his anachronistic pseudo-toff figures of speech, costumes and distractions.

The first time I set eyes on him was in 1999 when he was interviewed by ‘Ali G’ (another Oxbridge history graduate called Sacha Baron Cohen). That interview focused on class and culminated in the deceptively dressed and skillfully play-acting Cambridge graduate wearing the top hat of the deceptively dressed and skillfully play-acting Oxford graduate.

It wasn’t obvious to me at the time, though probably was to Baron Cohen, that Rees-Mogg was faking it just as much as the satirist. Asking if wearing a top hat or being “so rich they have a swimming pool” makes you upper class doesn’t seem so frivolous now we know that Mogg is two generations away from driving a lorry, which is a MUCH more useful occupation than hedge fund predator or hard-right activist masquerading as an MP.

The above illustrates one of my two core concerns about Jacob Rees-Mogg and the danger he poses — he’s always masquerading! From the pseudo-toff affectations he has cultivated since school to his claim to be a devout follower of Jesus ( a man many on the right would call a ‘woke’ socialist activist), to his claim…