Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Reform (Disabled People)
Debate between Heather Wheeler and Jacob Rees-Mogg(10 years ago)
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Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
May I add my congratulations to those already offered to the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) on a fine maiden speech? I was a great admirer of her predecessor, who was a wonderful man and an ornament to the House of Commons. He was, among other things, a papal knight. I am delighted that the hon. Lady is following in his footsteps with her excellent speech.
I want to move on from excellent speeches and things that made politics look as though they are for good and honourable people to the less pleasant subject of political opportunism. Political opportunism, of course, is something that plagues the political world and which we all have to deal with. Some people are very good at it. Alex Salmond comes to mind as an expert in that art. Some people might say that Nigel Farage is good at political opportunism, although others might think that he is more inspired than that. I am afraid, however, that the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) is not good at political opportunism; she is far too serious-minded and able a figure to lower herself to such depths.
It is interesting that the Labour party’s heart is not really in political opportunism. I notice that the shadow Secretary of State is not here. No doubt that is for very good reasons, but very good reasons for detaining senior political figures sometimes align to a remarkable degree with the disagreeability of the subject they have to discuss. I recall that a former Prime Minister, John Major, was detained by a serious toothache at a crucial point when the leadership of the Conservative party was at stake.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Yes, my hon. Friend is right. I hope that the shadow Secretary of State is not having problems with her dentist and that her absence is merely because she dislikes the subject under discussion.
This motion is an example of political opportunism, and we have known that from the first. How did the subject come into the public domain? Was it done in an upright and what we might call manly way? No, not a bit of it. Somebody was sent undercover to the Tory party conference. Some socialist, no doubt wearing a dirty mackintosh, crept in to hear the noble Lord Freud make a few comments at the party conference. Was that the upright fashion we expect even from the Labour party, or was it actually a rather underhand approach to political debate?
What was then done with the tape recording, this gold dust of political embarrassment? Was it brought forth and released to the newspapers? No. As the hon. Lady said, it was kept to the most important part of the parliamentary week. Parliament was in recess, so we had to wait for the revelation to come forth. One wonders why Prime Minister’s questions was suddenly in the eyes of the Leader of the Opposition. He must be a glutton for punishment if that was his view, for surely most Leaders of the Opposition think that other occasions are more enjoyable, for example when it is they, rather than the Prime Minister, who have the final word. The recording was held back as an example of pure political opportunism, to be used at a point when it could inconvenience the Prime Minister the most.
Even our great Prime Minister cannot know everything that is said by every junior Minister at every meeting at a party conference. His mind may be full of many things, but even his mind, great as it is, cannot hold that many things all at once. Inevitably, the Minister came under a bit of flack, and he apologised. I do not know the noble Lord Freud—I have been in the same room as him, but I have never met him—but the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston said that he is courteous and compassionate. So we have a courteous and compassionate man who is contributing to the development and discussion of public policy, and in so doing he said some words that he should not have said.
How is public policy to be developed if every time somebody says something that is a little bit interesting or beyond the consensus, their name is hauled before this Chamber and their resignation demanded? Are we to allow no development of public policy? Are we always to have witless comments being made in a politically correct way that allows nobody to consider what is in the real interests of people who are sometimes the most deprived in society? Are we to do nothing to help them improve their condition or enable the state to assist them in getting out of the levels of deprivation they are in? Are we to be so fearful, so frightened and so terrified of people sent around to spy on public meetings that we never develop policy at all? If that is what the socialists want, they are wrong.