“Those children need to be hungry if they’re to toil in my Lambeth boot-blacking factory post-Brexit. And plump ones will simply get stuck in the machinery in cotton mills.
“Aid? To the British Empire? Does Unicef not realise we are the heart of a mighty free-trade Commonwealth stretching from Land’s End to John O’Groats?
Hmm… I think they put it a bit better.
The biggest surprise is that Reese-Mogg has at least a conceptual awareness of shame; and one sufficiently well elaborated to encompass the notion that it is connected with the existence of a class of things that one should, and another class of things that one should not, do even in the presence of means, motive, and opportunity.
I assume it’s a fairly abstract and observational one, rather than correlated with personal experience of moral sentiments; but a sense of shame, of a kind, nonetheless.
Jacob Rees Mogg is not the UK government.
His statement is a wonderful example of the way an action can be “Playing political games” if someone else does it, but is “statesmanlike”, or “creative” if we do it.
Sounds like some ‘both sides’ BS to me.
In the sense that no single person alone is the UK government you may be technically correct. But otherwise…
Johnson government (2019–present)
Rees-Mogg endorsed Boris Johnson to become leader of the Conservative Party following the resignation of Theresa May. Following Johnson’s election as leader on 24 July 2019, Rees-Mogg was appointed Leader of the House of Commons, replacing Mel Stride. He also became Lord President of the Council and attends cabinet meetings in the Johnson government.[130][131] This is the first time that Rees-Mogg has either served in a government role or the Cabinet of the United Kingdom.
Shall we ask them if they refute it?
Will we get a lot of weasel words and hem-hawing?
And some Haw-Haw-ing for good measure.
His statement has to be assessed by considering who Jacob Rees Mogg is.
It is fairly safe to assume that if Jacob Rees-Mogg holds a political opinion on something, I will hold a thought through opinion in opposition to it already. There is probably something that I agree with him on, but the reasons for why I agree with him will almost certainly be in opposition to him.
This isn’t just “Victorian cosplay man bad”, as some unthinking right wingers assume.
Not really, because funding the feeding of hungry children isn’t something the Tories have ever been inclined to support.
It’s projection again
The Left actually wants to do things, it’s not just a conspiracy to win power and line its own pockets
Progressive voters are not primarily motivated by hatred of conservatives
but the Right is basically a crowd of football hooligans organized around the principle of pwning the libs
Your British politicians just come right out and say any old shit they want. Did he even address why UNICEF would have to do this?
If this is surprising to you, you might have missed what the UK tories really are. They were always Malthusianists: they believe charity and aid Make Things Worse. They are also some kind of mirror-stoics and think the suffering of others is to be expected and suffered with dignity. ( Some of You May Die, but that is a Sacrifice I’ m Willing to Make, Lord Farquaad )
Go ask the Irish how that works…
I think you can broadly define two groups of poor people:
They get very different treatment. For the former, as a rich person it is important to donate a trivial-to-you but large-sounding-to-the-public amount of money to an organization that purports to do good for them without worrying about what would actually change anything. For the latter, as a rich person it is important to pretend they both morally reprehensible and don’t exist and that anyone trying to help them is doing so only to attack you personally.
When something like UNICEF, who you may have donated a few thousand dollars to and some point, and who you thought was a partner in your reputation laundering, to turn around and help people in the latter group… well, it’s the ultimate betrayal.
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