‘Fluff’ MP and presenter in Partygate clash
NORTH East Somerset MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said people should “get a sense of perspective” over the Partygate fines after Andrew Marr opened up about his dad’s death while the PM’s team partied.
In the clash on Tuesday night the broadcasting veteran shared his “intense anger” while the Tory Cabinet minister stood by his comments that Partygate was “fluff”.
Mr Marr - who now presents the LBC show Tonight with Andrew Marr after leaving a 21-year BBC stint last year – said that he buried his father on the week that one of those parties took place.
He said: “He was an elder of the Church of Scotland – that church was locked and barred.
“We had a small gathering, most of the family weren’t there.
“The other parishioners he would have loved to be there weren’t allowed to be there because we followed the rules.
“I felt intensely angry about that – and I do not regard this as fluff.”
Mr Rees-Mogg at first avoided answering the point, instead saying
closing churches was a “great mistake”. But pressed by the broadcaster, he said he did not regret using the word fluff – even now the PM has been fined by police.
The Brexit opportunities minister
said: “What is happening now two years on against what’s going on in Ukraine, what is going on with the cost of living crisis, one has to get a sense of perspective.
“What is going on in Ukraine is
fundamental to the security of the Western world.
“And you are comparing this to a fine issued for something that happened two years ago.”
He added: “I think we need to look at what is fundamental to the security of our nation and the security of the Western world.”
Mr Marr told the Tory minister what happened to him “happened to so many others up and down the country.”
He added: “We find, I would say, that word ‘fluff’ quite offensive”.
But Mr Rees-Mogg said: “I still think that in comparison with the war in Ukraine... a fine for something that happened two years ago is not the most pressing political matter.”
He added: “The Daily Mail headline said ‘don’t forget there’s a war on’ and this is something we have to remember – we need a sense of perspective.”
He said while the PM was sorry to bereaved families, “all deaths are sadnesses” including ones not caused by Covid.
Earlier MPs groaned in protest as Boris Johnson apologised for his Partygate fine – but again claimed he didn’t know his own Covid rules.
The Prime Minister gave an “unreserved” apology – before immediately denying he had deliberately misled MPs when he said “all guidance was followed completely” in No10.