Thursday, December 08, 2016

Does Jacob Rees-Mogg want Britain to be governed by pot plants?

A pot plant yesterday
Jacob Rees-Mogg was eloquent in the House yesterday afternoon:
Those who are appealing now to parliamentary scrutiny are in fact rejecting an Act passed through this House, and worse, they are rejecting our employers - our bosses, our liege lords - the British people, who decided this matter for us.
But was he right?

This new Rees-Mogg Doctrine is a rejection of the central tenet of representative democracy - that, in the words of Edmund Burke:
"Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion."
Which is odd, because Conservatives have always been keen to claim Burke as their philosophical inspiration (even if you wonder how many had actually read him).

But the real problem with the Rees-Mogg Docrtine is that I doubt Rees-Mogg believes a word of it.

Here's why.

Back in 2006 the Conservatives were criticised because so many of their parliamentary candidates came from privileged backgrounds.

This is how the Independent reported Rees-Mogg's response:
One of the leading members of the David Cameron generation of new Tories created a storm yesterday by comparing people who were not privately educated and did not go to Oxford or Cambridge universities to "potted plants". 
Jacob Rees-Mogg, who will be fighting one of the Tories' target seats at the next election, also gave the impression that he thinks that anyone educated in the state sector is incapable of writing an "articulate" letter.
And that, I suspect, is what he still believes today.

If you put those words together with the Rees-Moff Doctrine, it follows that he wants Britain to be governed by pot plants.

But I suspect that Rees-Mogg does not believe a word of that doctrine. He has adopted it, not because he believes in the wisdom of the people, but because he sees them as easily duped.

Pot plants, they are. People who didn't go to public schools.

Please note that I have written this post without laughing at Rees-Mogg for his poshness...
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1 comment:

  1. Pedr ap Robat16 September, 2017 22:01

    On 21st June 2017, in an interview on the BBC, Rees-Mogg stated that, with regard to the vote to leave the EU in the referendum of 23rd June 2016, “Parliament should be the servant not the master of the people”. That is, it should implement the result of the vote.

    I wrote to him the same day with two questions:
    1. Can I ask whether you consider that Edmund Burke was wrong in his address to the electors of Bristol in 1774?
    2. If so, what principle best replaces that which he set out in it, in your view?
    Since then I have sent him several requests for an answer and have received none. Any idea why? Would they be hard for him to answer?
    Peter Roberts – Buckinghamshire

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