One of the most fascinating parts of election night was watching the various ways that outgoing Conservative MPs reacted to the furious bloodbath to which they were subjected. Some, like Penny Mordaunt, made a decent fist of equanimity. Others, like Liz Truss, reacted to their loss like they’d just been clonked over the head with a leg of lamb. And then there was Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Throughout election night, Rees-Mogg adopted a slightly amused distance to the carnage around him, happily doing the media rounds before the votes were in before quoting Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in his concession speech. “From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success,” he said, shortly before warmly shaking the hand of one of his opponents, a man in a baked bean balaclava.
