YouSaid · the spoken record

Jacob Rees-Mogg

lines on the record: 54
first: 2018-03-02
most recent: 2018-03-02
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I mean, I think it's a good and statesman like speech inevitably from a Eurosceptic point of view there will be some compromises, but I think it gets a good high score.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Doing that's right, as she said clearly, no deal is better than a bad deal, so not walking away is a reiteration of her good manners that we have a treaty obligation to try and negotiate an exit under Article fifty the Prime Minister intends to fulfil that.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's reassuring because it's a clear rejection of what the EU has been demanding that the UK should stay in a customs union or that there should be one for Northern Ireland to try and split up the country and destabilise the government. It re-emphasizes the point that we will be out of the European Court of Justice jurisdiction in all areas, that we will be free to set up our own trade deals, but that we want to do a friendly free trade agreement with the rest of the European Union.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I thought it was a good and very statesmanlike speech from the Prime Minister that is very reassuring to Eurosceptics. It's very clear in what the Prime Minister intends to do.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, if the children can get down from London, I think snow men will be absolutely on the cards, and I have a nasty feeling that I will be target practice for my children who will think it's frightfully funny to get a snowball winging in my direction. And I'm too wet to retaliate. I wouldn't throw a snowball at a ten-year-old or younger. It seems a bit mean”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, there's been a little bit of snow whilst we've been talking, little sort of flurries, this bit coming down now, and I'm looking out at the children's swings blowing gently in the breeze with about half an inch of snow on them”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're not going to be in opposition. We're going to win election after election under the great leadership of the current Prime Minister.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's it. Well, the odds on that are completely absurd. I am not a minister, never have been a minister, and the party of government always chooses a minister. I don't believe there is any occasion when a party of government has not chosen a minister. So if anyone has put money on, I would go down to the bookmaker and try and lay it off onto somebody else.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but that was a silly thing to say, and it was a fantasy of a child. I also wanted to play cricket for Somerset County cricket. And so, you know, children have these ideas which are not to be taken seriously in adult life.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think out of the mouths and babes and suckling sometimes comes in very silly comments. I think that was an interview when I was about 10 or 11.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They are individuals, and therefore they are of value, and so yes there is a consistency, but I don't wish to change the law to enforce my moral views on people, but it would be absurd to pretend that my Catholicism doesn't influence my view of the world”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You can separate the law from people's personal beliefs, but what underpins everything, I think, is the value of every individual and the equal value of every individual, be that from the point of conception to the end of life, and the crucial thing there is that that runs through what I think about welfare, what I think about the health service, what I think about taxation, that it is of crucial importance so that you remember that there are individuals who have to deal with these systems and all these individuals are equally important. And it doesn't matter race, creed, any of those things, disability, any of those things, they are valuable individuals who the government must try and look after as far as it can. They are not categories of people.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All these issues of free vote issues, and I think that's really important that they should be, not because I don't believe what I say, but because what would the situation be if you had somebody who had different views from me having a whipped vote on euthanasia, for example? And so I think it's absolutely right that these things are a matter for people's conscience and that will remain such rather than being part of a party program”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think there are a lot of people in the Conservative Party who have similar views to me. I think you should put my moral views to one side. They are not the mainstream of British politics or of the Conservative Party. And I don't think that anybody putting those views forward would carry a majority in the country.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Our description. I hope blue in tooth and claw rather than red in tooth and claw, but I think Brexit is now going to happen. It's a process that is underway. Do we need economic reform to help us become more prosperous as we leave the European Union? Yes, of course we do. It opens up all sorts of economic opportunities that weren't currently there. Welfare cutting is, I think, the wrong way of putting it. I think the really powerful effect of the universal credit is ensuring that work pays.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Did you call that? Rachel Sebasta's piece and I thought it made for a very engaging argument. Do I think it's accurate? I think you can always draw comparisons between people, but that we have a very different view of the world. And I would dispute that my views are the same now as they were 30 years ago, partly because 30 years ago I was only 18, whereas Jeremy Corbyn was by then a grown-up politician. And my views have certainly changed and weathered over the time”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the word lies usually wrong, actually. Very few politicians directly lie in truth, and therefore it's a word that one ought to avoid”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I don't think drones principled. I think he made his whole career out of not being principled, and why he was such an unsuccessful Prime Minister. I make very few comments of this kind, but John Major crops up every so often pretending to be statesmanlike, trying to lob hand grenades into the government. If you looked at his speech yesterday, he says sort of things like, I don't wish to cause any trouble. It was obviously untrue. He wanted to cause as much trouble as possible. That's why he made the speech. And I don't see why people tell these Not quite strictly true things.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, he wrote to me, but Jess is a model politician in my view. She is so deeply concerned for her constituents, she does everything she can. This may be indiscreet of me to tell you this, but she was hovering outside the government lobby in a vote a few weeks ago, to collar the home secretary to get something done for one of her constituents. She is that type of member of parliament, absolutely devoted to her constituents' interest, and she's a very kind person. And I think there is room for people in politics like that to have cross-party friendships. I mean, we disagree on almost everything politically.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You'll have to ask them really, but Matthew Parrish takes me more seriously than I take myself and has built me up into a figure that I'm not, which is all very flattering. And it often happens this way. It's fair in political debate that if they want to say these things, that's up to them. I believe in the freedom of the press, even when that means people are saying disobliging things about me.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think one's entitled to debate matters robustly. Is that okay? I haven't used that terminology I didn't think I've used that term or much either On the members of the Conservative Party who have voted against the government, I think they're completely entitled to. Bear in mind I voted against the government in previous incarnations of government policy. I think MPs are not there to be slaves to the whip. They're there to make their minds up and vote according to their manifesto commitments and to their conscience.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“John Major had attacked Boris Johnson in very personal terms, and I think if people pretend their statesmen and then lure themselves in that way, they perhaps remove themselves from the Queensbury rules.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'd say on Blair and Major that they're fine leaders of the past in their way, and that they don't have the influence or resonance that they think they might have.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And Lord Haig is a very moderate, carefully spoken man. I would take what he says seriously, but that's not what I'm personally predicting. I think by and large British people don't take to the streets. Dare I say, we're not French. But it would be very serious and very troubling. And if William Haig says that, people should take it very seriously, but it's not a forecast I would like to make.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it would be very difficult if it were reversed. I think it's right to say, you may know the precise number, that 3 million people who don't normally vote voted in the referendum, if you were to say to them, well, you were right not normally to vote because we're not going to take any notice of you anyway. That's a real hammer blow to confidence in democracy. And I know the EU has done this before. They've done it to Denmark and they've done it well and they like to make people vote until they give the right answer. But I think there would be very deep-seated opposition to that in this country.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I just like conspiracy theories. Most conspiracy theories are wrong, aren't they? The moon landing took place and all of that. And so I think one's got to be really careful about conspiracy theories. I think I'd put it differently. I'd say there are a lot of people who have a genuine belief that leaving the European Union is a mistake and that they are going to campaign as hard as they can to frustrate that. And Tony Blower and John Major fall into that category, as do some of the people in Brussels. And so their interests are aligned, even if they're not working together. They don't need to be working together. There doesn't need to be a conspiracy for them to hold these views and to be perfectly entitled to put them. On the other side, we have to put our views and have to carry on winning the argument.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I believe in good manners in public debate as far as possible, and I think we should stay at the negotiating table because that's the obligation we've got under Article 50. But the European Union needs to be very careful, and I do have doubts about the negotiating tactic. I think it was a mistake to agree the money first because the money is our strongest card. And the reason we're paying the money is for the rest of the agreement. It's not because we're nice, generous chaps and we'd like to give the EU a check for 35 to 40 billion pounds. But the legal text, the draft legal text from the Commission is very concerning because it's not something that democratic unionists can go along with. And that means that if the government agreed to it, the government would actually fall. And so they're proposing something that would bring down the British government if it were accepted. And that seems to me quite an aggressive move.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, if you could say believing in democracy is an act of faith, but I happen to think that democracy leads to the best government.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You wanted one example as to why it was so ridiculous. So, you can't have redress of grievance, you can't change the law, and your vote doesn't matter. That seems to me pretty serious reason for wanting to be out of the European Union. And then you can always say, oh, well, the individual examples, they don't really matter. We can mock them, but it's not that. It's that these are individual examples of things that are happening or continue to happen whilst we're still members across the country day by day. You can't get addressed.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the government can even change the VAT rate on tampons. The government was so hamstrung that it could not change the tax rate on a product that is essential and reasonable for millions of women in this country to want to buy. And you think you can't even do that because some bureaucrat in Brussels says you're not allowed to.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“because it's about democracy, that it's about can your voyage change your government? Does your government have the power to change the laws when it's elected? And in the European Union, the powers of the government were limited in wide areas. That's what underpins everything that I believe about Brexit. But it also ties in with my view that I was saying earlier that individuals in deciding for themselves and for their families how society should be built and operated are the ones who are likely to make the best decisions, and they make those at a national level. They don't make them at a European level because there isn't any proper European democracy. And there's very unlikely to be any in the foreseeable future.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's no point in changing things where society has a settled view and it's not going to change it. So what do I want to change? Well, I want to change our relationship with the European Union completely. I want to be out of it. I want us to have a more capitalist approach to economics because I think it will make everybody in society, particularly the poor, better off. So that means genuine free trade, opening up our markets. But these are the battles of today not should compulsory seatbelts be around”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That she used Well, actually, I do believe in the NHS. I think it is as efficient a way of spending public money and providing the health benefits that we need as a country and ensuring that it is available to everybody, which I think are civilized and wealthy nation wishes to do. So the NHS, I think, is something that I support more actively rather than simply saying, oh, well, it's there, so I'll keep it. And likewise, there has to be education and welfare. is part of a civilized society. How you do it, the details are different and I hugely admired Michael Gave's education reforms and likewise in Duncan Smith's welfare reforms. But to come to your point, politicians have to be realistic. What can they change?”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Society shows no sign of changing its mind, and these decisions are made by society at large, not by individual members of parliament, so I don't see them being reversed.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the art of conservatism is to change what needs to be changed and to hold on to what doesn't need to be changed. I think getting back things that have been lost is usually an entirely fruitless exercise that events move on and political life changes and trying to reinstitute old practices tends to appear to be faintly ridiculous. So to bring back hereditary peer-reviewed would now be a ridiculous thing to do and there's no question of it happening.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Wouldn't call myself a libertarian because I think it's a word that has unfortunate connotations. I think that you want to allow adults to make choices for themselves as far as possible. Should all the regulations on smoking gay? The answer is no. It's just a question of where you draw the line, the discouragement of smoking is something I think is a good thing, but I wouldn't bring in onerous bans and I wouldn't make it illegal, for example.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mogtopia, if I remember rightly, Utopia means, strictly speaking, no place rather than the perfect place. And I think that's the thing to remember that there is no perfect place and that we live within the conditions in which we live and that you have to try and improve things at the margins rather than thinking that you can build a new Jerusalem. But what am I in favour of? What underpins everything I believe in is that ultimately individuals make better choices for themselves and for their families than clever people in Whitehall can for them, and that the job of government and politicians is to try and take obstacles out of people's way in the lives they choose to lead, not trying to persuade them to lead lives that you think are good for them. So I'm a bit suspicious of nudge theory, not because it doesn't work, but because I don't actually think it's the job of the government to nudge us to do this, that or the next thing. I think we should make decisions.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm a Democrat, and the British people want to have a health service that is free at the point of use and that the public spending is lower than the United States slightly, and it's broadly in line with other European states. So however you cut it, I don't see that there would be huge savings in changing the NHS.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I am in favour of full blooded Toryism. I recognise that there are things that the state cannot do. But of course I think that there should be a provision for”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I fundamentally disagree with you. I think the advantages of being British are the greatest if you're not particularly well off, that if you think of the National Health Service we have a level of health provision in this country that is as good as anywhere in the world, that is available to everybody in the country regardless of their income or their assets. What good fortune is that? We have a functioning welfare system that's not to say that it isn't without its issues, but that can ensure that people have a proper standard of living. We have an education system that ensures that everybody gets an education. And yes, I accept that some schools are better than others. We have, compared to many countries in the world, a very high basic standard of living. And the very rich can live wherever they like, and it doesn't make any difference to them.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Being in touch issue, I think depends on being able to empathize with individuals who you meet and who particularly as an MP come to see you to seek your help and advice, and that there is nobody who has an automatic understanding of other people, that we understand our own lives, but that we do not understand the lives led by fate or by osmosis, the lives led by other people. There isn't this almost mystical understanding that some politicians claim to have. So that's the first part. The second part is you have to try to understand people, and so people come to see me in my constituency surgery, and they come with issues that arise in their lives where I may be able to help. And can I understand somebody who is facing a difficult problem in their life? Yes, of course I can. And can I then help them? Well, I will if I possibly can.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I certainly never wanted to be a modern man. That was long before I had children. And the nappy thing I was asked a question, I make the great mistake of tending to answer questions people ask me. It's not something I particularly want to discuss, the private affairs of my infants. But to come back to your question.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But come back to your question, I think I'd answer it differently. I'd say what I became aware of wasn't that I was different. but that everybody is different, that everybody is individualistic and has their interests and makes choices that are not uniform or preordained. That doesn't mean to say that there may be some commonality of interest that hundreds of people may want to go and watch cricket together and that may be a shared interest. But all those people watching cricket will have a range of different interests that don't necessarily intersect. And I think that's at the heart, to come back to politics, of a conservative understanding of the world, that it's about thinking about the drawing together of a mass of individual views rather than a top-down view of society”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I certainly enjoyed porridge. I have very poor taste in television. I enjoyed Dallas and dynasty when I was a schoolboy. And I sort of continue. I like watching not very high quality, not improving television. I've been watching Madam Secretary, which I don't know if you've even come across, but an American political drama on one of the more obscure sky channels.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When you said the Smiths, I wondered which particular Smith you were talking about, Mr. and Mrs. Smith or John Smith or Samuel Smiths. WH Smith, yes, very interesting man, W. H. Smith”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well inevitably because we lived in a small village in Somerset and so in village life you know pretty much everybody who lives in the village and people lead very different lives to the ones that we were leading.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely, and they've all got something to say, and it's worth hearing. And that was very much the background I grew up in. And so my father was interested in what his children had to say, which was very flattering of him.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My father was always interested in everybody's views. It didn't matter on their age or their background. And as I'm sure you are as a journalist, that you're interested in what people think and what they've got to say. And that there may be some people in very high office who don't think very interesting things and some people who aren't in high office who are absolutely fascinating. And that was very much my father's view. I mean, I don't know whether this is your view. I'd be interested to know.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, my father was up at Oxford with Margaret Thatcher and knew her, but she never visited us as Prime Minister. She did visit us after she was Prime Minister. And so no, my father moved in very, very political circles, and that was what I grew up with. And a lot of family conversation was inevitably political.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Certainly we were a political household and that my father knew a lot of politicians and political journalists who were visitors to the house, so as a child I remember meeting people like Robin Day and Bernard Levin in the journalistic sphere but also I met Ted Heath when I was about three just under when he was Prime Minister and so yes I remember he gave me Garibaldi biscuits. It was actually what had happened was my father was meeting him at Chequers, and my father couldn't drive, so we went to the family to pick him up. And Ted Heath invited us in to tea and gave me Garibaldi biscuits.”
2018-03-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jacob Rees-Mogg One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source