The many, many millions of Mogg

I speak to Jacob Rees-Mogg down a crackling phone line. Despite the poor-quality of the sound, his voice is unmistakeable: those rounded Edwardian vowels; the careful, deliberate delivery of phrases which fall slightly at the end, like a gramophone needing an extra turn of the crank. It is as though some enterprising audio-logist had devised the perfectly reassuring voice and presented it, with great doses of warmth and humour, in this double-breasted package.

A figure of intrigue (and not a little amusement) in the political world since first standing for Parliament in the safe Labour seat of Central Fife in 1997, there is a side to Rees-Mogg which few in the Westminster bubble see: that of the successful financier. The investment company of which he is the chairman, Somerset Capital Management, was founded by Rees-Mogg, Dominic Johnson and Edward Robertson in 2007 and currently has $7.6-billion under management, with offices in London and Singapore.