Why is Jacob Rees-Mogg so fond of imperial measures?

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Jacob Rees-Mogg's decision to launch a study of the economic benefits of reintroducing imperial units of measurement is, of course, ridiculous.

That's the whole point of it.

Rees-Mogg is a 21st-century financier who has cultivated a comically old-fashioned image as a way of disguising this fact. (It follows that those on the left who mock that image in the hope of harming his political career are actually boosting it.)

The announcement does serve political purposes too - reassuring the core Brexit vote, bringing out the worse in the government's opponents* - but it is best seen as part of Reew-Mogg's long campaign of self-advancement.

He appears to be using public money for personal PR every bit as much as Liz Truss does with all those Thatcheresque official photographs.

* On social media at least, Liberals and the left have a weakness for lecturing people. It is noticeable that Keir Starmer and Ed Davey have been careful to avoid this register.