Jacob Rees-Mogg: ‘I am enormously environmentally friendly by driving old Bentleys’

Jacob Rees-Mogg sits at a mahogany table in his office drinking black coffee from a Spode cup. Across from him sit three aides — laptops out and ears pricked. These days, the Moggster comes with an entourage, and their determination to be present sometimes surprises him. ‘I kept on saying to them on Sunday that they didn’t need to come to the thing in the evening but I think they’re worried about me saying the wrong thing!’

They’d have had good reason to worry. Since his election in 2010, Rees-Mogg has been one of the most quotably outspoken Tory MPs: now he is Leader of the House of Commons, his words carry more weight. He has found himself at the centre of a prorogation row involving the Queen and been scolded for reclining on the House of Commons green benches during debates. His near-horizontal slouch was reprinted on the front pages, seized on by those who thought it embodied governmental arrogance (or, as one poster put it, ‘lying Tories’).