ITV News finds Jacob Rees-Mogg falls foul of his own style guide

Jacob Rees-Mogg has issued a style guide to his staff. Credit: PA

Following news that Jacob Rees-Mogg has issued a style guide to staff, ITV News has looked back at some of the new Leader of the House of Commons' public speeches.

In the style guide, Mr Rees-Mogg instructed all staff in his new office to use imperial measurements and refer to "non-titled males" as "esquire".

Among the bizarre rules, he asks staff not to use the words "got", "very" or "equal".

These are the list of words Jacob Rees-Mogg deems 'no longer fit for purpose'. Credit: ITV News

ITV News found that Mr Rees-Mogg had fallen victim to some of his own rules on what words should and should not be used.

A search of one of his Brexit speech transcripts, published by BrexitCentral, found that Mr Rees-Mogg had used a number of banned words.

In his speech, he used:

  • "Very" twice

  • "Equal" once

  • Used "I" seven times during the speech

  • "Lot" once

In the speech discussing the UK's opportunities after Brexit, Mr Rees-Mogg said: "If the UK were tied to the European approach to data protection and data flow – a very restrictive one – it will limit the ability of our country to embrace the fourth industrial revolution."

In just the next couple of sentences, he repeated the banned word again, saying: "It is all very well for UK Ministers to extol the virtues of artificial intelligence and high tech as they are doing now almost, as we speak, amongst the panjandrums in Davos."

Also in the speech, Mr Rees-Mogg used "equal", which is another word he has asked staff not to use.

Describing how EU negotiations should take place, Mr Rees-Mogg said: "We must negotiate from the international trading framework in which both the EU and the UK sit as equal partners, whose provisions govern our behaviour."

"Lot" was also used by Mr Rees-Mogg. Speaking about future trading possibilities once the UK left the EU, he said: "This will improve the lot of all mankind and we, the British people, will be propelled forward on this rising tide."

Mr Rees-Mogg has used some of the words which he has banned staff from using in speeches, ITV News can reveal. Credit: PA

In another speech on Brexit on March 28, 2018, Mr Rees-Mogg was also found to have fallen foul to his own rules again.

In the full transcript published by Leave Means Leave, it was found that Mr Rees-Mogg:

  • Used "very" four times

  • Used "I" during his speech 17 times

  • Said "yourself" once

  • Said "lot" once

When talking about the reasons why people voted to leave the EU, Mr Rees-Mogg said one of the myths around why people voted to leave is because they were "all very stupid" and did not know what they were voting for.

As he discussed why Leave had won the referendum, Mr Rees-Mogg said: "The dire warnings of Project Fear amplified by self-righteous groups very often funded, like the CBI, by the EU itself fell on deaf ears in many parts of the Country."

Mr Rees-Mogg also talked up the opportunities a no-deal Brexit presents, saying the UK is more prepared than the EU for the "very simple reason" the UK will decide which goods come into the country.

Jacob Rees-Mogg explains the use of punctuation and reverts to imperial measurements. Credit: ITV News

He repeated the banned phase, saying the UK should have a "very open regime to high skilled labour" post-Brexit.

The use of "I" was used 17 times throughout the speech as well, which is against his rule of repeating the phrase.

"Yourself" was used once during the speech. When he spoke about EU migration into the UK, Mr Rees-Mogg said: "To move half way across a continent to a country where you do not speak the language, to work hard to provide for yourself and a better standard of living for your family is a really noble thing to do."

He also said there was a "lot of talk" about how the UK wasn't prepared for a no-deal Brexit.

He also said: "We have not built car parks at Dover and we have not got new EU immigration lines at Heathrow."