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Author: BAGEHOT
I first encountered protesters dressed as nuns in 1984-5, when I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sister Mary Pom Pom and her sisters in the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were regulars on the then-burgeoning protest scene. This week I encountered another protester, who was protesting against Jacob Rees-Mogg’s appearance before a crowd of 2,300 at the London Palladium. The “nun” was a woman, not a man like the nuns in the US. But her concerns were the same – that the right was bent on stripping gays and women of their civil rights and restoring an oppressive patriarchal society. I know this because she told me in no uncertain terms.
The nun protester’s tirade triggered two (contradictory) trains of thought in my mind. The first is that, despite his love of all things British, including double-breasted Savile Row suits, Mr Rees-Mogg is a very American character. He believes in both free-market capitalism and traditional morality. While most British Thatcherites, such as Liz Truss, chief secretary to the Treasury, stress that they are economic and social liberals, Mr Rees-Mogg sounds like a member of the American Moral Majority when he talks about marriage and abortion. He also brings to British politics the same skills that Newt Gingrich used to disastrous success in the United States in the 1990s: a willingness to lead the party within the party; a knowledge of what excites the media (it’s a pity that turning yourself into a “character” is now part of the political game); and, most importantly, a talent for breaking the informal rules of the game in pursuit of his ideological vision. The two even share a taste for eccentric versions of history.
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