Last week, in a piece headed "The pinstriped populist", The Economist 's "Bagehot" opined that the selection of Jacob Rees-Mogg, a Conservative member of the British Parliament, as his party's next leader (once Theresa May is defenestrated) would be a "calamity".
What is it that the ancient "newspaper" (as it still styles itself) has against Mr Rees-Mogg? Apparently they don't like him because he is rich, upper-class, conservative in matters both economic and social, and a practising Roman Catholic. Even with all those millstones around his neck, Bagehot fears that he has the "Moggmentum" to succeed Mrs May and lead his party into the next election. If he does, Bagehot asserts, the Tories would be wiped out because everyone knows there is no alternative to the liberal, secular humanist policies which have proven so successful in the AABC countries for over half a century.
Among other epithets, Bagehot calls Mr Rees-Mogg "eccentric". This would appear to be because, unlike most politicians, Mr Rees-Mogg is unafraid to state his opinions, however at variance they may be with the "conventional wisdom" or politically correct thinking. Case in point, an interview given early last September to ITV's Good Morning Britain in which the MP confounded the interviewers by stating, clearly and calmly, his opinions that (a) life begins at the point of conception, making abortion for whatever reason wrong, and (b) marriage is a sacrament and "the view of what marriage is is taken by the church, not parliament." Here's the clip.
For this precious minute alone, Jacob Rees-Mogg deserves (IMHO) the Order of Saint Thomas More... and if there isn't such a thing, there should be! If only Pope Francis would speak so clearly, and with such high regard for the tenets of the True Faith!
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