With Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg dubbed the 'Honourable Member for the 18th Century', who better than PopCon's own 18th Century wordsmith 'Swift' to review his performance?

There have been many thought-provoking and enjoyable PopConversations of late.

But in terms of range, quality, and profundity of thought, listening to Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg (interviewed by, as always, our leader Mark Littlewood) was the rough equivalent, Swift believes, of listening to the first performance of Beethoven’s Fifth. It was exceptional. You should listen in full, for Swift can’t do it justice. 

Sir J ranged with confidence across recent and potential future political events. Any old MP (or ex-MP) can do so. But what struck Swift as he listened was JRM’s  ability to cut to the heart of any question and discern what we need to learn, and what we need to do.

Swift offers you a few examples:

When asked what the last period of Conservative government had achieved, JRM (having courteously pointed out that not all of the last 14 years were undiluted Tory government) drew attention to Brexit, but also education and benefit reform - but acknowledged that many Conservative members were not instinctively in favour of going further.

He did not resile from the Truss experiment - it was a case of too far, too quickly - but the Bank of England played a damaging role. Here was the first proper bombshell: was the Bank’s independence actually a good idea at all? 

His cleverest point was to remind us that leaving the  European Union without having created new systems of accountability for the mushrooming number of quangos had opened the door to an administrative, unaccountable state. At least before, these bodies - the Environment Agency for example - had to kowtow to Brussels. Now there was nothing. And as we know, nature abhors a vacuum. This is not something out current crop of politicians have noticed or done anything about.

Sir J was not however given to wailing and weeping. He had a series of coherent policy proposals that would enable the Conservative Party to come out punching.

• Get rid of the quangos which had usurped ministerial accountability

• Consign to a well-deserved funeral the net zero target

• Depart from the European Convention on Human Rights and take back control of our borders

• Reverse the constitutional changes made by Blair and get rid of the Supreme Court

Well of course the naysayers would tell you that you can’t reverse such changes. But JRM made the perfectly valid point that government lawyers had told ministers that reversing the Fixed Term Parliaments Act and restoring royal prerogative over the  duration of Parliaments could not be done. Except it could, and it was. 

Was there not a lesson here for the reversal of other unwise Blairite experiments such as the (attempted) abolition of the Lord Chancellor?

The message was that is it just as easy to revert to the better ways of the past as to assume that what had changed could never be unchanged. This was inspiring stuff.

JRM is a realist. He admitted that the restoration of the Law Lords was not likely to bring jubilant mobs into the streets. But following the constitutional rail tracks laid down by Blair into eternity was not attractive either.

Here he saw an opportunity in the ineptitude of the Government - memorably describing Keir Starmer as ‘rather dull but not bad’ (possibly the most back-handed compliment in history) - a government that came into power unable to convert public discontent  over public services to a genuine movement for improvement and reform despite every opportunity to do so. 

In his view, the appalling start made by the new administration was ‘not recoverable’. There had been too many mistakes and miscalculations. Education. Tax. Transport. Every single one a botch.

The Sage of Somerset concluded - fairly enough - that Kemi Badenoch faced a tough challenge. He did not believe that Labour could win the next election with an overall majority. But what the outcome might be beyond that was an open question.