For a man who has provoked a firestorm of debate throughout the nation this week, the Hon Jacob Rees-Mogg, Conservative MP for North-East Somerset, is remarkably composed.
He glides into a parliamentary tea room in customary bespoke suit, affable as a vicar at a garden party, and is glad-handed by several colleagues.
A group of elderly female peers clamour to tell him how fabulous he is, and even a policeman on guard duty at the House of Commons gate, as I arrive, informs me Rees-Mogg is a ‘top banana’ and asks me to send his regards.
Beyond these august walls, however, there are plenty of people who would disagree with the cheery policeman. Quite a few would probably be comfortable seeing his head on a spike or him strapped in the stocks on the village green.
For a man who has provoked a firestorm of debate throughout the nation this week, the Hon Jacob Rees-Mogg, Conservative MP for North-East Somerset, is remarkably composed. Pictured above: The MP alongside his wife Helena and their six children
His crime? Rees-Mogg had been honest about his religious beliefs. A devout Catholic, and father of six, he has said he was totally opposed to abortion under any circumstances, even after a woman has been raped or a child the victim of incest. And he doesn’t agree with gay marriage, either.
The explosion of fury was predicably volcanic, and the waves of the aftershock are still rumbling today. Rees-Mogg, however, refuses to be ruffled.
‘It’s a free country and everyone’s entitled to express an opinion. Why should I get flustered?’ he asks equably.
Jacob and wife Helena de Chair, 39, an Anglican, divide their time between an elegant Mayfair townhouse and a grade II-listed manor in his Somerset constituency
Neither does he regret his openness. ‘Are you right to say what you believe so people know and then make choices, or hide behind routine formulas that cover up important beliefs?’ he asks. ‘My view of public life is that you should make your best efforts to answer as straightforwardly as you can, and the voters can make a judgment as to whether they like it or not. If you use the usual formulas and mantras, the electorate can’t make an informed choice.’
He expands on his views on abortion, which are anathema to many in a country that for 50 years has enshrined in law a woman’s right to choose.
‘Rape is a great evil and a terrible crime, but that’s not made better by then aborting the unborn child,’ he says. ‘The Catholic Church’s teachings are authoritative. There is a moral absolute on abortion — that it is wrong. To take a life after a rape is not the answer. Life begins at the point of conception.
‘One can only feel compassion for a woman in these situations — which, of course are rare — but it’s hard to see how taking a child’s life makes them better.’
Likewise, he’s not shifting an inch on the question of gay marriage, which was made legal in the UK three years ago. ‘I take the teachings of the Catholic Church seriously. Marriage is a sacrament and the decision of what is a sacrament lies with the Church not with Parliament,’ he says.
But what if one of his brood was to fall in love with someone of their own sex? What then?
‘I’ve never been invited to a gay wedding before, but I can’t see why I’d decline. If I went, I hope I’d enjoy it.
‘I’d come back to what I’ve already said: “It’s not for me to judge”,’ he says. ‘I’m sure the love I have for them would overcome anything.’
Would he go to a gay wedding? ‘I’ve never been invited to a gay wedding before, but I can’t see why I’d decline. It’s not for me to enforce my morals on others. If someone asked me to a drugs rave I’d refuse because it’s illegal. But gay weddings are legal. I wouldn’t get on my moral high horse. If I went, I hope I’d enjoy it.’
Clearly, I’m in the company of a very rare breed of politician here. Love him or hate him, one thing you cannot call Rees-Mogg is evasive or ambiguous.
An afternoon spent with him is enlightening; not least because I expected to dislike him for espousing views with which I profoundly disagree — but actually I found him delightful. Good company, erudite, gentlemanly and fun.
Their children — Peter, nine, Mary, eight, Thomas, seven, Anselm, five, 18-month-old Alfred and baby Sixtus, born in July — are ferried to-and-fro each week. Soon he’ll need a bus, I tell him
Tipped as a potential successor to Theresa May in a poll on Wednesday, he first put forward these views on that habitually bland forum of daily chit-chat, the ITV breakfast show, Good Morning Britain, when he was asked for his views on abortion and same-sex marriage.
Not for him the pragmatic caveats and ducking and diving deployed by those who know they are out of step with party orthodoxy. He answered then, as he does now, with forthright candour.
But what woman would choose to bear a rapist’s child? And what compassionate and civilised society would force her to do so? ‘It’s a very difficult question and one I can’t answer. I don’t know,’ he says. ‘But I think life is so important that even if the creation of it has taken place in difficult circumstances, that life should not be removed.
‘Similarly, it’s very difficult for families to bring up disabled children and one of the tragedies of abortion is that a disabled child who is as full a person as an able child is aborted routinely. And doesn’t that lessen society’s view of people with disabilities? And isn’t it a great sadness?
Tipped as a potential successor to Theresa May in a poll on Wednesday, he first put forward these views on that habitually bland forum of daily chit-chat, the ITV breakfast show, Good Morning Britain, when he was asked for his views on abortion and same-sex marriage
He said: ‘There is abortion for sex selection — although less so in this country — and the difficulty is that so many things open up when you don’t treat life as sacred.’ He insists Theresa May, who also disagrees with him, has not reprimanded him for openly expressing his opinions; neither is he calling for a change in the law.
‘No, these are free vote matters as the Prime Minister said. I’m not trying to establish a theocracy [a government led by divine guidance]. These are my beliefs, but before I was born the legislation on abortion was settled. It’s not going to be unsettled by me now.’
‘Rape is a great evil and a terrible crime, but that’s not made better by then aborting the unborn child,’
Iain Duncan Smith, a former Conservative party leader and also a Catholic, voted for gay marriage and also this week expressed his disagreement with Rees-Mogg on abortion, adding his views could be a ‘tipping point’ if he ever ran for leader.
‘He is entitled to his view, and I to mine,’ insists Rees-Mogg, adding: ‘It isn’t for me to judge other people on how they interpret their faith.
‘I’m not the Pope and I’m not infallible. It’s a private matter between them, their priest and God and I have no role in that.’
Although a survey of Conservative activists this week found that nearly a quarter would like to see Rees-Mogg, a prominent Brexiteer, as party leader, and 10,000 petitioners have also called for him to stand, he is predictably reticent.
‘It’s all very flattering and good fun, but I’m not quite vain enough to believe it,’ he says. ‘I’m a backbench MP and we don’t get to lead the party.’
He dismisses, too, any idea that the PM might promote him: ‘When the great Mrs May was asked on the radio if she was going to make me a minister she giggled.
‘She hasn’t had a lot to laugh about, but for a minute or two she laughed away. So I’m not holding my breath.’
The roots of his faith and views were established in his childhood: his late father William Rees-Mogg, then editor of The Times, was also a devout Catholic who took his five children to Mass every Sunday.
I wonder how he would feel if his children decided not to vote Conservative. He says: ‘Children are individuals. They make decisions for themselves. I can suggest things, make arguments, but they may not agree with me. At the moment they’re all quite Tory I’m glad to say — although I can’t answer for Alfred and Sixtus.’
Although a survey of Conservative activists this week found that nearly a quarter would like to see Rees-Mogg, a prominent Brexiteer, as party leader, and 10,000 petitioners have also called for him to stand, he is predictably reticent
Young Jacob ‘loathed’ it as a small child. ‘But when I got into double figures, I suddenly started to enjoy going,’ he says. ‘It was part of family life and if you go every week you gradually absorb the Church’s teaching.’
Born into wealth and privilege, he and his siblings were raised by his adored nanny Veronica Crook, now 75 and gamely in charge of his own brood of six. Jacob then followed the well-trodden path of the elite from Eton to Oxford and into the City where he became a hedge fund manager. He was elected to his Somerset seat in the 2010 general election.
An obdurate traditionalist who doesn’t even own a pair of jeans — ‘I can’t think why I should,’ he says — he also jokes that he would wear double-breasted pyjamas if he could only find a supplier.
He’s never cooked a meal, washed his clothes (as a bachelor he sent them to a laundry) or changed a nappy. Why would he with the redoubtable Veronica in charge?
He careers round the Somerset lanes in a 1936 Bentley, his children piled, without seatbelts, into the back. Little wonder sketch writers have dubbed him ‘the honourable member for the early 20th century’. He is a man of dry humour, punctilious courtesy and old-fashioned charm: even those who disagree vehemently with his views find it impossible not to warm to him in person.
SNP MP Mhairi Black, a vocal anti-Tory well known for her passionate anti-austerity diatribes, has nonetheless described him as one of her favourite colleagues.
‘I could sit and listen to him all day,’ she has said.
He, in turn, tells me Black is a ‘very impressive person. She makes excellent speeches. I admire her’.
He is a man of dry humour, punctilious courtesy and old-fashioned charm: even those who disagree vehemently with his views find it impossible not to warm to him in person
His children will follow the same well-trodden paths of the wealthy and advantaged as he did: the boys’ names are down for Eton and the older ones currently attend Hill House preparatory school in Chelsea, whose notable alumni include Prince Charles and Jacob himself
Jacob and wife Helena de Chair, 39, an Anglican, divide their time between an elegant Mayfair townhouse and a grade II-listed manor in his Somerset constituency.
Their children — Peter, nine, Mary, eight, Thomas, seven, Anselm, five, 18-month-old Alfred and baby Sixtus, born in July — are ferried to-and-fro each week. Soon he’ll need a bus, I tell him and he bursts delightedly into a chorus of Flanders and Swann: ‘A big six-wheeler, scarlet painted, London transport, diesel engine, ninety-seven horsepower omnibus!’
Will there be more children? ‘Time will tell,’ he says, smiling. ‘I thought number five was the last.’
I ask if Sixtus was a ‘surprise’? ‘A great joy!’ he parries.
So does he adhere strictly to the teachings of Catholicism and abjure contraception?
‘I’m not going to go into such personal details,’ he says politely. ‘Of course, you can ask, but some things are private.’ He is equally reticent on the subject of chastity — traditional Catholics believe sex should be saved for marriage — declining to give his views or say whether he abstained until his wedding night.
He is equally reticent on the subject of chastity — traditional Catholics believe sex should be saved for marriage — declining to give his views or say whether he abstained until his wedding night
He is a man of unfailing good humour: one old friend commented she had never seen him rattled, let alone bad tempered. His views — religious, moral, political and social — are deeply conservative with both small and capital Cs.
His children will follow the same well-trodden paths of the wealthy and advantaged as he did: the boys’ names are down for Eton and the older ones currently attend Hill House preparatory school in Chelsea, whose notable alumni include Prince Charles and Jacob himself.
The only surprises are that his wife used to have a tongue piercing and he attended the births of all his children. I imagined, like the Victorian paterfamilias he is in so many other respects, he would have been pacing anxiously outside the delivery suite until a scrubbed and swaddled infant was presented to him.
Instead he tells me: ‘It’s the most exciting and joyful moment every time. Having been at the first birth I wouldn’t have missed subsequent ones for all the world. It’s just so wonderful and incredibly moving.’
He admits to being a doting and indulgent father, and a hopeless disciplinarian. When he is home in time for a bedtime story he improvises one about Colonel Blood who steals the Crown Jewels, but is arrested thanks to the courageous efforts of six children.
‘And the children love to hear stories from nanny about when I was a little boy. I didn’t do anything too bad. Well, I didn’t ever run through a cornfield,’ he smiles, making a gentle joke at the expense of the PM, who confessed she did, when asked to name the naughtiest thing she’d ever done as a child. ‘That would have been shocking!’
He admits to being a doting and indulgent father, and a hopeless disciplinarian. When he is home in time for a bedtime story he improvises one about Colonel Blood who steals the Crown Jewels, but is arrested thanks to the courageous efforts of six children
I wonder how he would feel if his children decided not to vote Conservative.
He says: ‘Children are individuals. They make decisions for themselves. I can suggest things, make arguments, but they may not agree with me. At the moment they’re all quite Tory I’m glad to say — although I can’t answer for Alfred and Sixtus.’
Gay friends — yes he has some, he says — have not commented about his latest remarks because there has been no change in his views.
I tell him about the latest developments on an online fan page called MoggMentum (a play on Labour’s Momentum), which has been calling for him to be PM. Since his proclamations about gay marriage it has been hijacked by appalled protesters posting photos of lesbian and gay lovers.
Rees-Mogg remains blissfully unconcerned.
‘It wasn’t such a furore really,’ he contends. ‘I’m a minor backbench MP who said something on an early morning TV programme that caused some on the Left to have a fit of the vapours.
‘I’m allowed to say what I think and people are absolutely entitled to say back what they think. I believe in free speech — and protecting it — is very important.’
‘People will not always agree with you and sometimes will take disagreement as personal dislike,’ he says. ‘It’s easy to do until you meet the person, isn’t it? And when you do, you often think: “They’re not as ghastly as I thought.” ’
You know what? He has a point.