When Jacob Rees-Mogg left his Bentley behind and went to Fife, he soon found himself in trouble.
But 25 years after the Old Etonian stood for the Tories at the 1997 general election, it seems he hasn’t lost his ability to fall out with Scots – even in his own party.
In his days of door-stepping voters, Rees-Mogg nearly found himself in a few boxing matches – and history repeated itself this week when he trash-talked the Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross and said “he has always been a lightweight”.
Central Fife
The son of late Times editor William Rees-Mogg was chosen as the prospective parliamentary candidate for Central Fife in January 1997.
He was making his entry into politics at the age of 27 after graduating with a history degree before becoming an investment manager in Hong Kong.
He shrugged off claims that he was a joke candidate, sent up from England to fight an unwinnable seat in the hope of getting his hands on something better next time round.
Mr Rees-Mogg gave a speech to Conservative supporters at the Laurel Bank Hotel in Markinch in April 1997 after being formally adopted.
He memorably spent the election campaign accompanied by his nanny and trawling the largely working class constituency in his mother’s Mercedes Benz.
“We took my mother’s Mercedes Estate,” he said.
“I don’t think a Bentley’s a suitable campaigning car.
“It was the petrol consumption – six miles to the gallon.”
Carpet slippers
He went canvassing in a pin-stripe suit round the doors in the Broom estate in Leven as he allegedly accused people on benefits as being the scourge of the earth.
Mr Rees-Mogg was followed on his campaign trail by journalist Jim White whose Sunday newspaper article sparked outrage amongst locals and councillors.
The feature described Leven as a former mining town, “its purpose extinguished during the Thatcher coal wars,” and cited its main features as “boarded up shops, gangs of youths with muscle-bound dogs, and old men shuffling about in carpet slippers”.
Older members of The Courier staff still fondly remember his legendary visit to Kingdom Shopping Centre in Glenrothes.
“I’ve found one!” his nanny Veronica Crook was heard to shout in a surprised tone.
She was referring to a Tory voter.
Henry McLeish
Mr Rees-Mogg turned into cannon fodder and he was saved from being beaten up during the campaign by Labour candidate Henry McLeish.
Mr McLeish said: “At one point, somebody threatened to come onto the platform and beat him up.
“A touching part to that was that after saving him from a potential duffing up, his father, the very distinguished editor of the Times, William Rees-Mogg, sent me a letter thanking me for how I’d managed to protect him, for which he was very grateful.
“It was a delightful letter, basically saying ‘I don’t often write to Labour MPs, but I would like to thank you very, very sincerely for the way you looked after my son’.
“Jacob was like a fish out of water and clearly bewildered by places like Methil and Kennoway.
“He was reasonably well behaved in my company because I think he was in fear of his life.
“The fact he is looked upon by some as a future Prime Minister seems well beyond the realms of comprehension.
“I never even thought he’d ever make it as an MP.”
Mr McLeish won the seat for Labour with 23,912 votes with Tricia Marwick (SNP) second with 10,199 and Mr Rees-Mogg a distant third with 3,669.
Mr Rees-Mogg was elected as MP for North East Somerset in 2010 and made a name for himself on the backbenches as a maverick.
He is currently the Leader of the House of Commons.
You might also like this:
Duchess of Argyll’s divorce case sparked a very British scandal in 1963