The day I told Jacob to Mogg off. And the rest of the country should do that now
21 YEARS ON MINING TOWN’S VOTERS ON TORY TWIT’S FIRST TASTE OF LIFE ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL How man tipped to be the next PM bumbled his way to election defeat
It was the moment the man reckoned to be the most likely future Tory PM after afte Theresa May came face to face with wit the people of Leven in Fife.
And the Old Etonian’s charm offensive consisted of declaring that people on benefits were the scourge of the earth… to a voter on sickness benefits.
Jacob Rees-Mogg has come a long way from the cannon fodder no-hoper who took his nanny on the campaign trail in Fife in 1997 – and had to be saved from being beaten up by his Labour opponent Henry McLeish.
As bookies made the staunch Brexiteer the favourite to succeed May as Tory leader, we returned to the Fife Central constituency to find out what locals have madem of his stratospheric rise.
The man often described as “honourable member for theth 18th century” because of hhis views finished a distant third with just nine per cent of the vote in 1997.
He probably wasn’t helped by the fact the then 27-year-old campaigned in the tough Fife former mining community with his nanny Veronica Crook in tow.
And retired painter Pete Cunningham, 72, from Leven, didn’t need any reminding about Mogg.
He said: “I saw him on telly the other night and I said to my wife, ‘ Do you remember that guy?’ and she said, ‘ Too bloody right’.
“Oh, we remember the man born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He didn’t have a lot of good things to say about people on benefits and I was open-mouthed when he started referring to them as ‘scourge of the earth’.
“I was off sick at the time with spondylitis and was taken aback. I had been forced to stop working as a painter/decorator after damaging eight parts of my spine so for him to talk like that did not go down well.
“It was quite a heated discussion. I said, ‘I’m one of those people you say are scourge of the earth’.
“At that point, my wife Marlene arrived back and she actually worked in the Jobcentre.
“He tried to schmooze her by saying, ‘ Hello Marlene, I’m Jacob Rees-Mogg, your Conservative candidate,’ and she said, ‘That’s Mrs Cunningham to you’.
“I told her what he’d been saying and she said, ‘Have you ever even been in a Jobcentre?’ and he said in that posh voice, ‘ No, no, no, no’. He was looking down his nose at us and I said, ‘Out. Go away’. Then he went next door and they chased him as well.”
Pete is baffled Rees-Mogg is now being touted as the frontrunner to take over the Tory leadership. He added: “I don’t follow politics but can’t believe that man would be considered a future Prime Minister by anyone.”
Photographer Colin McPherson captured the images of pin- stripe suited banker Rees-Mogg taking to the streets of the Broom estate in
I was going tto take my Bentley but she said it’d be seen as ostentatious
Leven. Colin said: “At the time, it was considered one of Fife’s most deprived schemes and I think he must have imbibed something from his nanny to even set foot there.
“The first thing the reporter asked him was, ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ and Jacob Rees-Mogg said, ‘I’m here to save the Union’.
“I remember it so clearly. He was wearing this big blue rosette with tartan tacks in the middle of it and I suppose, if you look at what’s happened since with the independence referendum, then maybe he was ahead of the curve. He campaigned really hard. He was giving it a right go and not scared to knock on the doors and talk to people.
“There was a picture I took that day that is always used and appeared on the Graham Norton show recently. It’s one where he looks like the ministry of funny walks – he’s skipping over a fence with his leg up in the air.”
May Thomson was snapped in discussion with Rees-Mogg while tending to her garden. She died aged 61 in 2008. Her nephew John Stevenson, 45, who lives next door, said: “She never told me about meeting him. He’d have got chased if he’d hit my door. The last time a Tory put a leaflet through my letterbox I opened the door and gave it back.”
Rees-Mogg, who is the son of former Times editor William, was eventually elected as MP for North East Somerset in 2010.
He is the darling of right-wing Conservatives and once welcomed the increased reliance on food banks, saying: “I think it is rather uplifting and shows what a good, compassionate country we are.” Speaking about campaigning with his nanny in 1997, Rees-Mogg said: “I was going to take my Bentley but she wisely said that this would be seen as ostentatious and I should take mummy’s Mercedes instead.
“She does a lot of knocking on doors but she doesn’t say things like, ‘Hello, I’m Jacob’s nanny. Will you vote for him?’
“The reaction to me varies. Some people think I’m a Jehovah’s Witness and are delighted to get rid of me.
“But, on the whole, most people are very friendly. There’s only a tiny handful who make it extremely clear that they want me to go away.”
Rees-Mogg was trounced by Labour’s sitting MP McLeish and he revealed how he had to step in to stop his Conservative rival from being beaten up at a hustings event in Methilhill.
McLeish said: “At one point, somebody threatened to come onto the platform and beat him up.
“A touching part to that was that after saving him from a potential duffing up, his father, the very distinguished editor of the Times, William Rees-Mogg, sent me a letter thanking me for how I’d managed to protect him, for which he was very grateful.
“It was a delightful letter, basically saying, ‘ I don’t often write to Labour MPs but I would like to thank you very, very sincerely for the way you looked after my son’.
“Jacob was like a fish out of water and clearly bewildered by places like Methil and Kennoway.
“I did not get the feeling he was the dangerous ideologue extremist we know him as today. He was reasonably well-behaved in my company because I think he was in fear of his life.
“The fact he is looked upon by some as a future Prime Minister seems well beyond the realms of comprehension. I never even thought he’d ever make it as an MP.”
He was looking down his nose at us so I said, ‘Out. Go away’. Next door chased him too