A Jag and a Greggs: on the votes trail with Rees-Mogg

Despite current dire polling, Alex Ross encounters the Tory Brexiteer in jovial mood as he canvasses for local support

- Alex Ross

On display inside Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg's untidy office are three large portraits: Sir Winston Churchill, Boris Johnson and himself.

They hang from cream-coloured wallpaper behind a cluttered wooden desk at the centre of the HQ for Sir Jacob's uphill campaign to win the North East Somerset and Hanham constituency – his fifth straight term in the area. “Boris went up when he became leader... we always had the leader up,” says Sir Jacob, looking up at the pictures. “Then Covid came and we’ve hardly used the office since.”

No Liz Truss, then. But what about Rishi Sunak, will he get his place next to Churchill? ‘Um... well, we will eventually,” Sir Jacob says, with a wry smile. “We’ll see how much we need it after the election, when he’s returned comfortably as PM. Yes, absolutely.”

It’s 17 days to polling day on 4 July and I’m in Keynsham, on the edge of Bristol, following Sir Jacob’s general election campaign. Hidden down an alleyway between Bargain Booze and a local solicitor’s firm, it’s a struggle at first to find the office (I initially mistake it for the former Keynsham and District Conservative Club, where early-morning drinkers are sipping their first pint) but I get there eventually.

Boxes of delivery leaflets cover most of the carpeted floor while the chairs and the steep stairwell are filled with around eight friendly members sipping coffee and chatting before the day’s canvassing.

“The national polls... you know, we don’t read those,” says Margaret Brewer, Sir Jacob’s upbeat agent, with the latest poll from Ipsos projecting the worst post-war result for the Tory party.