The darling of the Conservative right tells Rishi Sunak to rescue the election by striking a deal with Nigel Farage
He is, arguably, the most Tory of all Tories and has certainly never been concerned about going against the party line. Even during a general election campaigncome the 4 July, what you will hear from most Conservative candidates is “there’s only one poll that counts” and “not a single vote has been cast yet”.“We were having a reorganisation, so the place is somewhat messy,” he says. “Then the Prime Minister called the election when we didn’t expect it and we haven’t had time to tidy up since.
Norris is given an 80 per cent chance of winning this seat by website Electoral Calculus, while the recent YouGov MRP poll puts Rees-Mogg on 34 per cent of the vote and his opponent winning with 40 per cent. If Sunak is either disinclined or unable to pull off a deal with Farage, Rees-Mogg rules out being one of a gang of six Tories said to be considering a defection to Reform.
What of another “big political figure” who has been conspicuous by his absence during the first two weeks of the campaign? Where is the man who, for grass root Tories, is the only one among them that can take on Farage. Instead, the Prime Minister sent foreign secretary David Cameron to mix with Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and Volodymyr Zelensky while he doubled down on his £2,000 Labour tax claim in an ITV interview.
Meanwhile the Tories have rejected Labour claims that it’s pledges so far during the campaign add up to £71bn of unfunded policies.“Up to a point Lord Copper,” says Rees-Mogg. “Those commitments, every single one of them commitments actually made by a shadow cabinet spokesman on behalf of their party of things that they intend to do. They have then been costed, and that’s turned into a tax figure.
“I don’t think either side is lying,” he says. “I don’t think Labour is lying, I don’t think we’re lying. “They could only do that because of Brexit and that’s the point. You vote and your government’s in charge and it can do things that I don’t like and you don’t like because we have restored parliamentary democracy to this country.”“Who would create my character, it would be a very eccentric thing to do,” he says. “I am what I am. I don’t think anyone would take PR advice to create me.”
“The Royal Commission will be extremely interesting,” he says in an unusually brief answer from a man who admits to being long winded.“The policy is to have a Royal Commission and I’m very happy to have a Royal Commission and see what the commission comes up with. Then I’ll know whether it’s good idea or not.”
He does not believe that Truss’ and Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget in September 2002 with its £45bn in unfunded tax cuts – along with the war in Ukraine and Covid – put the economy where it is today.“Interest rates were going up because we had rampant inflation because the Bank of England had failed to do its job properly. The Bank of England, which had a job to keep inflation at 2 per cent, let it get to 11 per cent.
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