When Jacob Rees Mogg criticised Robert Jenrick calling him a Cameroon, I politely reminded Jacob how he wrote to me as Leader of the House telling me to do the MPs diversity training course! He replied it was necessary at the time! I like Jacob, but you need to... have a long memory in politics 😀 Reform UKshow more

@RobertJenrick You mean to say that Jacob Rees Mogg is an advocate of DEI? Surely not! Fair Play Andrea, well said 😂

@RobertJenrick Ouch 😂

@RobertJenrick 🤣🤣🤣

@RobertJenrick I have a great deal of respect for Jacob but I am afraid he’s become a bit of a nutcase

@RobertJenrick You caught him nicely there: he was a DEI fellow - traveller, dolled up as a plummy voiced cartoon Tory. These days fewer voters are taken in by the costume drama 'conservatism'.

@RobertJenrick all you need to know about the Reform UK party in 60 seconds

@RobertJenrick Ooooof….

Here is the thing about Jacob Rees-Mogg. He's highly perceptive but also at times myopic. He's also got insane double standards as regards Reform and the Conservatives. First the positive point. As many know he is a deeply intelligent man, who has a proper appreciation of the importance of a solid but non-doctrinaire ideological framework to guide individuals and parties in politics. He is also an erudite and witty orator with a memory recall capacity akin to a high grade LLM when it comes to economic figures, constitutional conventions and procedures, and party political developments. But like any LLM, he is not infallible - he is also susceptible to cognitive bias and over-reading trends at times. The other notable thing about Jacob is he can be as judgmental as anyone else about what he perceives as past philosophical and practical trespasses of others. He is correct to say that Robert Jenrick did fit neatly into that Cameroon / Osbornite tendency in the centre ground of the Parliamentary Conservative Party after his by-election victory in 2014. But Robert also even back then showed notably more spark than most Cameroons did in the importance of addressing dysfunctionality in the planning system that was damaging prosperity and holding back the attainment of home ownership for young British couples. He tried under Boris to comprehensively address this only to see his reforms neutered when backbenchers reacted in uproar and Number 10 intervened. He then got sacked for this heresy, despite being one of the few Cabinet members during the first year of the pandemic to actually show any clear signs of real competence and composure in his MHCLG department's various operational programmes under the broad goal of social shielding to help support the extremely clinically vulnerable who were unable to leave their homes on medical instruction. Robert Jenrick was also one of the few serving Conservative ministers during 2020-21 who never went down the social authoritarianisn and embracing of new normalism route in his TV and radio interviews to my knowledge. He was one of the first ministers I can recall who spoke about the public needing to learn to live with Covid and get society back to normal. Jacob Rees-Mogg for his part was often on the radio squarely batting in defence of Boris' staunch lockdown rules and absurdities like the Rule of 6. He also used his Conservative Home Podcast "The Mogg cast" to actively praise the work on social media of the arch-Wet and junior Neil O'Brien MP who was writing long threads "exposing" prominent people in the scientific community, universities and other parts of public life who were lockdown skeptics. Jacob praised O'Brien for using his "brilliant and analytical mind" for "destroying the arguments of lockdown skeptics with facts and data". So, I think when you see Jacob Rees-Mogg label Robert Jenrick a Cameroon in a condescending and dismissive manner, you should take it with a pinch of salt. People's views and philosophical touchstones change over the course of their life. I am sure there are things that Jacob said during the midst of the pandemic while staunchly defending the policies of Boris Johnson on the pandemic response and other aspects of big state nanny statism that he would now reflect on with regret. Nobody is perfect. We are all fallible. Jacob is like me a fellow Roman Catholic. We believe in the concept of forgiveness for sins and trespasses of the past and in the idea that you should be careful to reflect on your own words before casting the first stone at others. Maybe he should give Robert the benefit of the doubt that his political outlook has evolved. In the same way I still value Jacob as a national figure and a highly effective exponent for many beneficial economic and political approaches despite the big mistakes and unacceptable behaviour he cheered on during the pandemic.

@RobertJenrick Simply brilliant 👍👍

@RobertJenrick “Diversity training” how low could the Tory party have stooped! It’s so sad to see what was such a behemoth of a party turn so far to the left! Not a wafer between them and Labour now.

@RobertJenrick Diversity you say ?

@RobertJenrick Andrea’s take from this is that two things can be true at the same time Bob Generic will do and say anything to inch himself a fraction up the greasy pole

@RobertJenrick I like Jenrick but he's lost his way. Better Call Nige here tells you all you need to know on duality when it suits you appauling sales people who have equally short memories

@RobertJenrick A long memory to remember the "SHIT" politicians push, then deny they pushed something when public opinion changes

@RobertJenrick All very interesting but, Dame Andrea, what have you done for the people of Lincolnshire in your role as Mayor

@RobertJenrick Mogg is an out of touch Toff. Landed gentry like him will never really understand the struggles of 'the little people'..

@RobertJenrick Yes Andrea. Jacob should remember this too. #VoteReformUK

@OwenO79193 @RobertJenrick Memory 🧠

@RobertJenrick You go Andrea, you really do:

@RobertJenrick @Jacob_Rees_Mogg could have chosen not to, instead he went along with the BS. He's lost his seat, FAFO.

@RobertJenrick All as bad as each other 😂

@RobertJenrick He went red as a beetroot, you should remind him of how he wants to mug our pensioners of their Triple Lock. One of the main reasons he was booted out as an MP.

@RobertJenrick Well done Andrea - Jacob is always coming out with some snide remarks about Reform, especially the Councils run by Reform. He is a Tory through and through.