Jacob Rees-Mogg is a divisive figure. Some people think he’s an infuriating upper-class clown who’s really about as posh as when hotels fold the end of the toilet paper into a little V shape. Everyone else thinks he’s a genuinely evil toerag who should be deported.
For a long time, I could see both points of view. This week, like most of the country, I’m coming around to the latter way of thinking.
In a radio interview, Rees-Mogg said many of the people who died in the Grenfell Tower blaze had lacked “common sense”. That they stupidly followed the advice of the fire brigade when they were told to stay put in their homes.
According to Jacob Rees-Mogg, Jacob Rees-Mogg would never have made that mistake. He has too much of that good old “common sense”. He’d have survived where others perished.
This all reminded me of the rantings of another lunatic with delusions of grandeur: Mark Wahlberg.
You’ll remember, dear readers, the interview back in 2012, when Marky Mark, formerly of the Funky Bunch, found himself wandering off topic and talking about the 9/11 hijackings.
“If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn’t have went down like it did,” he said. “There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, ‘OK, we’re going to land somewhere safely, don’t worry.’’’
Well, he didn’t so much wander off topic as went charging, butt-naked, off topic.
There was so much to unpack here. There’s the gratuitous reminder that, of course, Mark and his family would have been travelling first class.
Then there’s the main point: that this Hollywood actor and former pop star would have taken out a bunch of knife-wielding terrorists bare-handed. He also said: “We certainly would have tried to do something to fight. I’ve had probably over 50 dreams about it.”
Mark, mate, I’ve had more than 50 dreams where I walk off stage with The Clash straight into the arms of Claudia Schiffer. I can have 50 more – it’s still never happening.
Well, after the entire world went absolutely berserk baying for his blood and the career-ending proportions of this statement started to become clear, Mark put out another statement.
This one was a bit different. It said: “To speculate about such a situation is ridiculous to begin with and to suggest I would have done anything differently than the passengers on that plane was irresponsible.
“I deeply apologise to the families of the victims that my answer came off as insensitive, it was certainly not my intention.”
And you can just imagine the PR manager typing this out while Mark screamed into a pillow nearby.
Likewise, Jacob Rees-Mogg. When he saw the public outpouring of career-ending rage coming his way, he promptly issued a further statement.
This one said: “I profoundly apologise. What I meant to say is that I would have also listened to the fire brigade’s advice to stay and wait at the time.”
Of course, the words “what I meant to say” are often employed right after you’ve said “when poor people burn to death, it’s their
own fault”.
And you shall know them by their defenders. Who came forward to support the haunted pencil? Julia Hartley-Brewer? Of course. Arron Banks? He was there with bells on.
Best of all was Tory MP Andrew Bridgen – a man who relishes presenting himself as a scumbag, who sees himself as the scumbag’s scumbag, a kind of Frank Sinatra of scumbags – who came out to bat for Rees-Mogg by saying: “We want very clever people running the country, don’t we? That is a by-product of what Jacob is, and that’s why he is in a position of authority. What he is actually saying is, he would have made a better decision than the authority figures who gave that advice.”
As sure as night follows day, the following morning saw Bridgen tweeting the words: “I realise that what I said was wrong and caused a great deal of distress and offence.”
To me, this was the truly stunning part of the whole sorry affair. I couldn’t believe that these guys hadn’t understood that they could get away without an apology.
Wahlberg needed to make one in 2012. But, after humanity broke through the shame barrier in 2016, with Brexit and Trump, apologies became redundant. You can literally say and do anything now. No apology required. Ever. Someone should have told Jacob and Andrew.
In the end, you realised that Wahlberg and Rees-Mogg had both bought into the same nonsense: they are rich and successful so it is literally beyond their capacity to imagine that a tragedy that befell some “little people” could possibly happen to them.
The superhuman powers that had bestowed them fame and fortune would have given them the divine inspiration to survive a plunging airliner or a burning building.
There is only one problem with this theory. It’s an utter pack of cobblers.
