Jacob Rees-Mogg cannot escape his own carefully crafted persona

Common sense is a slippier concept than you might think. Common sense, after all, might suggest you don’t put Jacob Rees-Mogg in the Cabinet. But if you have put Rees-Mogg in the Cabinet, common sense might then dictate you do not compound this avoidable error by sending him onto the radio to defend or advance government policy. Radio, much more than television, is a place pock-marked with traps for unwary politicians. And Mr Rees-Mogg is an unwary creature indeed. 

A persona must be maintained, after all, even if doing so leads a politician into trouble. This is the problem with politicians whose appeal – to the extent it exists at all – is not much more than a kind of branding exercise. Mr Rees-Mogg has so thoroughly immersed himself in the peculiar fantasy of his own brand that he cannot escape it. He is not the only politician to hobble himself in this fashion.