Friday, March 19, 2021
Rees Mogg foot in mouth
The Leader of the House of Commons is well-known for his condescending attitude and his attempts at erudition, but two performances in the House of Commons this week have brought down opprobrium on his rathe privileged head.
In one, Jacob Rees Mogg referred to an incident where the Speaker of the House of Commons Lindsay Hoyle, told off Plaid Cymru MP, Liz Saville Roberts, for speaking too much Welsh by calling one of the UK's oldest languages a ‘foreign language’ and comparing it to Latin.
As Nation Cymru reports, the incident was brought up in the House of Commons by SNP MP Owen Thompson, who asked if time could be arranged “so that we could actually consider how the indigenous languages of these islands could perhaps be more incorporated into the business that we undertake”:
Rees-Mogg, who is the Leader of the House, said whilst “modest quotation in foreign languages is permissible” it was “reasonable” not to allow “full speeches”.
He added that “honourable members might occasionally use Latin quips and that is perfectly allowable”.
What exactly do they teach in these posh schools?
In the second incident, the Guardian says Rees Mogg used Parliamentary privilege to wrongly accuse a journalist of being “either a knave or a fool” over a story about the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab:
Rees-Mogg’s outburst came during his regular ministerial question session on Thursday morning, when the shadow leader of the Commons, Valerie Vaz, asked about a story on Tuesday by Arj Singh, HuffPost’s deputy political editor.
The story quoted a leaked extract of a video call between Raab and staff in his department in which the foreign secretary said it was possible the UK could strike trade deals with countries whose human rights records breached the European convention on human rights (ECHR).
“If we restrict it to countries with ECHR-level standards of human rights, we’re not going to do many trade deals with the growth markets of the future,” Raab said. Raab’s department said later the leaked extract had been “selectively clipped”, and that the minister’s fuller comments highlighted a more nuanced approach.
Speaking in the Commons, Rees-Mogg said Raab’s words had been “shockingly distorted by low-quality journalism”, adding: “It’s a very cheap level of journalism, it’s not a proper way to behave.”
Raab had been “absolutely clear” that rights abuses could affect trade, and that the recording was edited “unfairly, improperly, and broadly dishonestly”. Rees-Mogg added: “I think we should look at that type of poor-quality, online journalism. It’s not the sort of thing that would happen in the Times.”
At the end of the ministerial session, Vaz raised a point of order to note that HuffPost had contacted her to reject any accusations of dishonesty.
Rees-Mogg replied: “If the journalist didn’t clip it himself, he ought to have known it was clipped. He is either a knave or a fool.”
In a tweet, Jess Brammar, the editor-in-chief of HuffPost UK, said: “To use parliamentary privilege to smear a journalist – knowing you can’t be sued for defamation because you are saying it in parliament – is extremely troubling. We stand by Arj and his journalism. Produce your evidence, Jacob Rees-Mogg, or retract and set the record straight.”
Asked repeatedly in a Downing Street media briefing whether No 10 endorsed Rees-Mogg’s language, Allegra Stratton, Boris Johnson’s press secretary, declined to explicitly do so, saying: “I think we’re just saying that we regret that this particular audio was selectively clipped.”
However as the HuffPost say, this is not true. They say they did not edit any recording passed to them and quoted it in full.
In one, Jacob Rees Mogg referred to an incident where the Speaker of the House of Commons Lindsay Hoyle, told off Plaid Cymru MP, Liz Saville Roberts, for speaking too much Welsh by calling one of the UK's oldest languages a ‘foreign language’ and comparing it to Latin.
As Nation Cymru reports, the incident was brought up in the House of Commons by SNP MP Owen Thompson, who asked if time could be arranged “so that we could actually consider how the indigenous languages of these islands could perhaps be more incorporated into the business that we undertake”:
Rees-Mogg, who is the Leader of the House, said whilst “modest quotation in foreign languages is permissible” it was “reasonable” not to allow “full speeches”.
He added that “honourable members might occasionally use Latin quips and that is perfectly allowable”.
What exactly do they teach in these posh schools?
In the second incident, the Guardian says Rees Mogg used Parliamentary privilege to wrongly accuse a journalist of being “either a knave or a fool” over a story about the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab:
Rees-Mogg’s outburst came during his regular ministerial question session on Thursday morning, when the shadow leader of the Commons, Valerie Vaz, asked about a story on Tuesday by Arj Singh, HuffPost’s deputy political editor.
The story quoted a leaked extract of a video call between Raab and staff in his department in which the foreign secretary said it was possible the UK could strike trade deals with countries whose human rights records breached the European convention on human rights (ECHR).
“If we restrict it to countries with ECHR-level standards of human rights, we’re not going to do many trade deals with the growth markets of the future,” Raab said. Raab’s department said later the leaked extract had been “selectively clipped”, and that the minister’s fuller comments highlighted a more nuanced approach.
Speaking in the Commons, Rees-Mogg said Raab’s words had been “shockingly distorted by low-quality journalism”, adding: “It’s a very cheap level of journalism, it’s not a proper way to behave.”
Raab had been “absolutely clear” that rights abuses could affect trade, and that the recording was edited “unfairly, improperly, and broadly dishonestly”. Rees-Mogg added: “I think we should look at that type of poor-quality, online journalism. It’s not the sort of thing that would happen in the Times.”
At the end of the ministerial session, Vaz raised a point of order to note that HuffPost had contacted her to reject any accusations of dishonesty.
Rees-Mogg replied: “If the journalist didn’t clip it himself, he ought to have known it was clipped. He is either a knave or a fool.”
In a tweet, Jess Brammar, the editor-in-chief of HuffPost UK, said: “To use parliamentary privilege to smear a journalist – knowing you can’t be sued for defamation because you are saying it in parliament – is extremely troubling. We stand by Arj and his journalism. Produce your evidence, Jacob Rees-Mogg, or retract and set the record straight.”
Asked repeatedly in a Downing Street media briefing whether No 10 endorsed Rees-Mogg’s language, Allegra Stratton, Boris Johnson’s press secretary, declined to explicitly do so, saying: “I think we’re just saying that we regret that this particular audio was selectively clipped.”
However as the HuffPost say, this is not true. They say they did not edit any recording passed to them and quoted it in full.
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If Welsh is a foreign language, what does that make English or even Anglo-Saxon? JRM could be justified if he spoke in the language of the first inhabitants of this island. Unfortunately, it has now died out apart from a few geographical names.
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