Christmas is coming and millions of parents across the UK will be dreading their children comparing what they receive with their Christmas list. Hundreds of thousands of parents will be borrowing heavily from the likes of Littlewoods or dodgy loan sharks just so they can at least go some way to match their children’s expectations, even as they themselves miss meals to pay for it. Welcome to modern day Britain, the seventh richest country in the world in terms of GDP but with stark inequality.
Charles Dickens wrote the world famous Christmas tale, A Christmas Carol about Mr Scrooge who is so absorbed about his own income that he mistreats his personal assistant who has a disabled child at home, Tiny Tim. Might I introduce a modern day version of Mr Scrooge? Meet Jacob Rees Mogg, Conservative MP for North Somerset.
The UK has extraordinary libel laws and unless it is verified I can’t write it. Suffice to say his behaviour is enough to make me wonder whether certain people should be allowed anywhere near Speaker’s Corner let alone Parliament.
Treasury Select Committee
The Independent news website reported last week that Rees Mogg said that after the UK left the EU, “regulations that were “good enough for India” could be good enough for the UK – arguing that the UK could go “a very long way” to rolling back high EU standards.”
Filibustering
Rees Mogg is famous for his use of Parliamentary rules that permit a bill to be talked out of time and thereby killed off. This is called ‘filibustering’. Amongst other bills, this poor example of humanity talked out an amendment to the Health and Social Care Bill (Feb 2015) that aimed to stop the worst of the government’s privatisation of the NHS.
In 2014 he was filmed for the BBC2 series ‘Inside Parliament’ filibustering the Affordable Homes Bill that was designed to stop people being made homeless under the Bedroom Tax. The same programme showed how concerned he was about the rules of Parliament so he could exploit them at will.
Votes in Parliament
While this old Etonian likes to talk out bills where there is a risk of people in need of government services actually benefitting from the NHS or welfare state, he has always been quick to vote against anything that might help the poor as well.
In 2014 the Bristol Evening Post reported how this man was one of just eight MPs “to vote against a bill requiring smoke alarms to be fitted in all privately-rented homes.”
Rees Mogg was one of many Tory MPs in strong opposition to the 2016 Housing and Planning Bill that had the rather unpalatable clause that private housing ‘should be fit for human habitation’. If you think that people on the breadline manage to anyway these days you’re having a laugh. In 2012 I ran an investigation for the Sunday Express about one landlord in Dorset who rented out property unfit for animals let alone humans. See the article here. Look up housing charity Shelter if you want to see how those without live today.
Let’s look at the website www.theyworkforyou.com under the title Jacob Rees Mogg. As one example, on social tenancies:
In 2012 he “voted to introduce under-occupation criteria applying to housing benefit for working age claimants in the social rented sector and to set the rates of Local Housing Allowance which applies to private rented accommodation.”
Additionally, in 2013 he“voted against publishing the results of research into food banks; against freezing energy prices; against a water affordability scheme; against measures to end abuses of zero hours contract; against incentives for those paying the living wage and against abolishing the under-occupancy penalty for social housing tenants.”
Who is he?
Rees Mogg is the son of a former editor of The Times and reputedly made his first million by the time he was 15 from investments. Again the same rumours have it he paid his own way through Eton – not a bad thing to do at some levels as everyone should try to pay their own way in this world if able.
When he inevitably made it to Oxford University his rather odd ways made the student newspaper Cherwell where he had the piss roundly taken out of him for his odd behaviour. I have no problem with his being a geek who did well for himself – for my part I was hazed for so long and so harshly I developed a serious psychiatric disorder yet would get an MA and today I’m not doing too badly.
What really sickens me is despite his own success he has an attitude problem towards the poor, evidenced in all his behaviour in this article and beyond. Given that he votes to cut welfare and environmental standards, and even to allow people to live in decent accommodation, how could he complain at a seven figure bonus from his employer? One report suggests, “I saw him accost a former manager to complain his seven-figure bonus wasn’t sufficient – in the line-up at his own wedding,”
Wishing you a Merry Christmas Mr Scrooge Mogg…
The more you read about welfare cuts and the NHS going down the toilet, and attacks on those who are just about getting by in this world, the closer to the conclusion you come to a Tory dream of turning Britain into a Dickensian nightmare. Jacob Rees Mogg is at the vanguard of this. I somehow wish the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Christmas Yet To Come would pay him a visit. You never know – he may even develop a conscience!
Richard Shrubb
