It Ain’t What You Say, It’s How You Say It…

It’s not that Jacob Rees-Mogg isn’t quite right in what he says here, it’s that he….

Well, in his own words:

Mr Rees-Mogg said plans to hand councils the power to impound cars which are being sold on the street were pernicious and went against the citizen’s “ancient liberties” enshrined in the Magna Carta.

Well, hurrah! Sadly, it was all downhill from there…

The MP told the Commons: “Then around comes this authorised officer and practically drives off in your brand new Bentley. It would be very tiresome for the person who had bought a brand new Bentley, if anyone could afford such things in these times of austerity.”

He added: “I think being a car salesman is a really honourable profession. Trading cars is the way to starting in business.

“Eventually you’re buying Aston Martin DB5s and putting them outside your front door for £150,000 – cheap at twice the price some might say – and that’s before you’ve even got on to thinking about Bentleys.

“Great cars that they are too, though perhaps not quite as good as Aston Martins some might say, with the style and sleek lines that they have. To get people starting in business, how are we going to get this economy revived if we don’t encourage the small businessman?”

By now, I suspect you are slack-jawed with amazement, and so will miss the rather important point he’s actually making:

He continued: “It can often be a mistake to give power to relatively junior people who have excessive power in one particular area. If you take the authorised officer who is likely to do this, he is likely to be a relatively lowly official who suddenly has the power to go around and confiscate a car.

“It might be quite a nice car, it might be that Aston Martin DB5 I was talking about earlier that somebody was trying to sell for a good price and some teenage council officer who comes round and says ‘I rather like that, so bang, I’ve seen that on the internet and I am now going to seize it with a seizure notice’.

“That doesn’t build in the proper protections we ought to have as British subjects.”

Jacob, forget it. You have lost any audience you might have had. You’re merely a caricature of a Tory MP, especially with stunts like this:

The Bill has been debated on several occasions by MPs, with Mr Rees-Mogg earlier failing in a bid to mandate all council officials to wear bowler hats.

Oh, FFS..!

Mr Rees-Mogg’s 67-minute speech covered a wide variety of subjects, including a thinly-disguised attack on Labour mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone, the coats of arms of the London boroughs and PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves stories.

The Tory said he was standing up for the rights of the individual against petty, overbearing bureaucracy.

Well, could you please do it without all the poorly-thought-out, grandstanding, look-at-me-everyone bollocks?

Because it’s not working!

Mr Rees-Mogg’s amendment to the Bill, which would have scrapped a clause handing powers to councils to seize cars being sold on the street, was defeated by 96 votes to 11, Government majority 85.

Christ, if this is a ‘new Tory’, it’s no wonder no-one wants to vote for them.