Free speech advocate Jacob Rees-Mogg is literally banning his staff using certain words
As Jacob Rees-Mogg takes his place in Boris Johnson’s new cabinet, it’s been revealed that he has a style guide and a list of banned words. They’re as backwards and weird as you’d expect. People had fun with it, but some of Rees-Mogg’s writerly demands are troubling.
It turns out the free speech advocate isn’t above banning words.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, Esq., M.P.
ITV News revealed the list of style guidelines and a list of prohibited words. The Rees-Mogg house style mandates the following:
The guide starts off strong (The Canary also treats organisations as SINGULAR), but rapidly goes downhill. The thought of calling “all non-titled males” esquire has led to a lot of ridicule for the honourable fop:
Jacob Rees Mogg:
Remainers are the eliteAlso Jacob Rees Mogg:
Please refer to non-landed males as Esquire, I want to know whether they're scum without having to meet them first https://t.co/EH8LcQrMEk— James Felton (@JimMFelton) July 26, 2019
He is such a fucking bellend. Sorry, Mr. Fucking-Bellend, Esq. https://t.co/hST7m7l2FR
— Chris Hewitt (@ChrisHewitt) July 26, 2019
Although many Britons use imperial measurements for some things and metric for others, few people under retirement age are calling for the complete return of imperial:
What's an "imperial" measurement? Asking for someone from the 20th Century 🤣
— Keith Williams 🌈🇪🇺🇬🇧 (@KeithP_Williams) July 26, 2019
Instructing staff to use “imperial measurements” isn’t going to help the 14 million people living in poverty @Jacob_Rees_Mogg, it won’t help the millions using food banks & it won’t feed the kids going hungry this summer. You’re completely detached from reality https://t.co/eNRXazNK3R
— Peter Stefanovic (@PeterStefanovi2) July 26, 2019
Britain adopted the metric system in 1965. Rees-Mogg – despite acting like a Victorian – was born in 1969. By the time he entered the school system, nearly a decade had passed since we began using metric measurements. As such, it’s no wonder people are accusing Rees-Mogg of being a massive try-hard:
When I once asked seriously posh pal how his lot see the Moggster he said “faux aristocratic, gets his ideas from reading PG Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh.” That’s a bit unfair to PGW who ( unlike Waugh or Mogg) was taking the piss https://t.co/ahFAlnWbyH
— MichaelWhite (@michaelwhite) July 27, 2019
https://twitter.com/KimSJ/status/1154865370945208320?s=20
https://twitter.com/Milly_Mount/status/1154881004361920512?s=20
Others pointed out that his stance is an odd one from a man who once said, “I just believe government money should be spent well”:
Dear @Jacob_Rees_Mogg, Esq, please quantify the amount of wasted civil service time it will take your staff to convert everything into imperial units.
I thought the government was supposed to be increasing efficiency, not wasting my money? https://t.co/D8Md1WlQUR
— Sustainable Energy Forum (@Eddystone506) July 27, 2019
Very disappointment
Perhaps more troubling are the words that the alleged free speech advocate has banned:
Is Rees-Mogg hearing phrases like ‘disappointment’, ‘unacceptable’, and ‘no longer fit for purpose’ so often that he never wants to hear them again?
People had some things to say:
While the media are laughing at how quaint Jacob Rees-Mogg's new rules are, let's think for a moment. The first thing he does in his new job is tell people what words they can or can't use, including the words 'equal' and 'invest'. pic.twitter.com/LQMVUgoDkr
— Paula Hammond (@writer_paula) July 27, 2019
Not surprised to find @Jacob_Rees_Mogg has proscribed ‘equal’, ‘invest’ and ‘speculate’ but the good news for writers is that ‘unctuous’, ‘greedy’, ‘hypocritical’, ‘oleaginous’ and ‘bastard’ are still available for use. #JacobReesMoggGuide #ToriesOut
— article six 🇺🇦 (@SixVpf) July 27, 2019
Homelessness has more than doubled since the Tories came into power, they’ve overseen a boom in food banks and child poverty, and Rees-Mogg is preoccupied by banning phrases in emails. They just don’t care. pic.twitter.com/bClCKsR0Yq
— The Poisonous Euros Atmosphere Fan (@DawnHFoster) July 26, 2019
Conserving the past
Not everyone is critical, however. Twitter user Lee Morgan suggested that it’s our “lack of standards” which led us to where we are today:
It is a little more complex than the simple example of the @HackneyAbbott school of economics you illustrated
As for double spaces, you are being critical because of an implementation of standards?
It is the lack of standards that is the cause of much of today’s society issues
— LMY746 (@LMY746) July 27, 2019
It’s not clear how the double space will solve climate change, reverse austerity, or end inequality. But, then again, it isn’t for us common folk to understand the thinking of our ‘very’ honourable esquires like Rees-Mogg. They make the weird rules; we just follow them.
Welcome to Boris Johnson’s 21st-century cabinet.
A cabinet in which some words aren’t free, and others might cost you a shilling in the ‘disappointment’ jar.
Featured image via LadyGeekTV – Wikimedia
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If Mogg were not in the neo-liberal camp, differences between us would be trivial. As matters stand I don’t like the company he keeps; he shows lack of discrimination and taste by consorting with such as Johnson, a man intellectually and morally grossly inferior.
Setting that aside, some of his ideas appeal. Although the Moggs are not deeply rooted in recorded English history, I believe they did come to grasp ‘noblesse oblige’ once their fortunes changed. Mogg in many ways represents what the Conservative Party once stood for; exacting standards, self-discipline, reasonable tolerance of the crass culture of intellectual/educational inferiors, probity, and decency. Perhaps in these times of stress he is aided by having Roman Catholic rather than insipid Anglican heritage. Yet, through being gulled by unsavoury acquaintances into an outlook befitting the late, and unlamented, Ayn Rand, he has placed his earthly reputation and soul in peril.
Mogg jokingly is referred to as Minister for the Nineteenth Century. That overlooks many virtues associated with that very exciting period of British history. It was time of intellectual and technological ferment. It was when gentlemen were, in large measure, broadly educated and polymaths could exist. It was a period in which hypocrisy and immorality thrived but that no more than nowadays.
We live in a time when Jack is encouraged to believe he is as good as his master: patent nonsense. Mogg and I know better.
Jack cannot aspire to anything more than empty existence floating on a sea of carefully manipulated popular culture and ‘consumer’ expectations. Jack’s only means of rising is by cultivating clarity of thought and its mode of expression. The current state educational system stultifies rather than encouraging these attributes. It looks askance when Jack seeks to rise above his peers. However, the private education system achieves little better when confronted by the likes of Johnson; it merely prepares them for the Oxford finishing school where social graces are instilled via clubs such as the Bullingdon.
In this light, anyone encouraging subordinates to deploy sound grammar, to eschew hackneyed words and phrases, and to cultivate manners, is indeed putting ‘noblesse oblige’ into practice and merits praise from other cultivated people.
Too many words, nothing of interest to say.
Typical Tory bollocks, just like J-R-M
Lord Snooty acting as if he’s worth something when in reality he’s a typical right wing wanker.