Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg issued a stark warning to the Tories last night, saying none of the leadership candidates have a cure for the threat of Reform. He told the grim message to GB News last night:
“The candidates have been good at identifying the problem. But what is the cure when the party is untrusted and Reform has pinched our finest clothes?”
Meanwhile, the candidates are desperately throwing out numbers on a legal migration cap in their efforts to appeal to Reform voters. A reminder: Cameron promised to cap the numbers the tens of thousands. Last year net migration was over 700,000. And over half of Tory members think a merger Nigel’s “real opposition” would improve Tory chances of winning at the next election…
Jacob Rees-Mogg spoke to ITV after today’s PopCon event and turned to 1886 for inspiration:
“I would like to reunite the Conservative family, whether that means they’re formally part of the Conservative Party, or have some arrangement as we did with the Liberal Unionists.”
The News Agents hosts Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel are providing their usual incisive analysis of the media landscape by discovering that Tory MP presenters on GB News talk about politics. Sopel whined that he wouldn’t have a problem with them doing travel programmes:
“Jacob Rees-Mogg takes the bus. That would be fine. I’d have no problem with it. But it’s Jacob Rees-Mogg doing politics.” Jacob Rees-Mogg taking the bus would be more entertaining than Sopel and Maitlis’ snoozefest…
Sopel’s complaint also misses the point in the Ofcom investigations, which is whether programmes slip out of politics and into news. Emily Maitlis says that Ofcom is scared of GB News – tell that to the 21 spats they’ve had in the last two years. Sopel then goes on to point out that GB News is “swashbuckling” while “the rest of broadcasting seems to be playing by the rules“. That doesn’t apply to when his own co-presenters were still employed by them…
Civil servants are increasingly playing truant. A written question has revealed that the blob took 1.86 million sick days in 2022, with the Ministry of Justice losing a whopping 7.4 days per staff member per year. The Scottish Government came in second with 5.9 days per staff year lost to “sickness”. As Jacob Rees-Mogg rightly notes, “It seems unlikely that public servants are much less healthy than those in the private sector so there is probably a degree of malingering“. Meanwhile only half of HMRC’s staff even bothered turning up to the office in January…
Jonathan Eida at the TaxPayers’ Alliance tells Guido “taxpayers are sick and tired of skiving civil servants. Sickness absence is costing the British public a small fortune and slowing down the delivery of public services“. Work shyness could always be treated with redundancy…
Guido can reveal that the Tory neoliberal right are launching a new group, this time called “Popular Conservatism” A.K.A. “PopCon“. Launch invites to MPs, members and activists will be sent out this morning. The group is branding themselves as “a new movement aiming to restore democratic accountability to Britain and deliver popular conservative policies.” Speakers at its launch include Liz Truss, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Simon Clarke, and Ranil Jayawardena. The group insists it’s neither a sixth “family” or a rebrand of the Conservative Growth Group, instead pushing to cut ties with quangos like the OBR and Blairite legal devices such as the Equalities Act. Sound ideas…
The launch date will be on 6th of February and co-conspirators can apply for tickets here. We’ll see if it’s popular by name, popular by nature…
Jacob Rees-Mogg has warned Sunak that he must accept Tory rebel demands tonight or face “election wipeout“. Speaking on GB News last night, the teller said:
“If the Tory Party followed the rebels, it would begin to restore its popularity by being Conservative. If the Prime Minister gets this Bill right and we see flights taking off before the next election, we could just possibly see a revival of Tory support that could prevent the predicted election wipeout.”
Although Cash’s amendments were defeated, the PM suffered a major rebellion in the Commons last night and he’ll face more blue on blue infighting tonight. Only 33 Tory MPs need to vote against the bill tonight for it not to pass, or a large enough number of abstentions. Though it’s expected the bill will pass at third reading, rebellions and high-profile resignations are dealing damage to No 10. As Issac Levido said, “divided parties fail”…
