THANKS to Shona Craven for an informative and analytical article on Unicef’s decision to give £25,000 to a breakfast project designed to feed hungry children in areas of London (Destitution by design should shame Rees-Mogg and co, December 18).
Ms Craven captures the current lack of compassion or genuine care for the vulnerable in the current Conservative party’s ideology very adeptly. The recent swingeing cut to the international aid budget demonstrated their insular, self-centred and callous humanitarian priorities and Ms Craven is accurate to find these traits manifested in the Leader of the House of Commons.
By attempting to dismiss Unicef’s compassionate aid as a “stunt”, Jacob Rees- Mogg is acting completely within character and within his own warped, morally myopic set of principles. The man who described state-educated people as “thick as potted plants” and who believes that zero-hour contracts provide help to workers due to what he deems as their flexibility, is no stranger to controversial views or antediluvian opinions.
READ MORE: Shona Craven: Rees-Mogg and co should be ashamed of UK destitution by design
The same Rees-Mogg who is still a partner in Somerset Capital Management, a hedge fund that has subsidiaries in the tax havens of Singapore and the Cayman Islands, lobbied to cut Employment Support Allowance by £30 to penalise the sick and disabled and dubiously celebrates the existence of food banks as “community projects that show our collective compassion.” The term “ruthless hypocrite” scarcely does him justice.
To cement his reputation as a political and social reactionary, Mr Rees-Mogg has also advocated an electoral pact with the intolerant Ukip party, supported far-right fascist German political groups and been a strong supporter of President Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon.
He is best summed up by the journalist Victor Lewis-Smith: “he is a minor PG Wodehouse character, a humourless dullard in the Drones club with inherited money and no flair, the epitome of unearned, upper-class privilege.”
The Westminster government in microcosm.
Owen Kelly
Stirling
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