The virtue of allowing readers to vote as they please – rather than presenting a list of contenders for them to select from – is that it offers freedom of choice. The vice if it is one is that support therefore tends to be widely dispersed.
So it was last year when Lee Anderson won 54 votes out of 522 to become ConservativeHome’s Backbencher of the Year. Though that was more votes than anyone else, it was only some ten per cent of the total. Anderson went on to be appointed a Vice-Chairman of the Party during the following month.
And so it is again this year. Jacob Rees-Mogg gained 64 out of 611 votes and becomes our Backbencher of the Year for 2023, pipping Miriam Cates, who didn’t really trouble the scorers last year, to the post by three votes. Only Suella Braverman, with 33, Anderson himself, with 31, and Theresa May, with 27, won over 25 votes. (Anderson’s eligibility, given his post, is disputable.)
Rees-Mogg has been Energy Secretary briefly, and was Leader of the House for longer, an appointment that suited him. For whatever your view of him, the former star of our Moggcast is a House of Commons man through and through and, therefore, completely at ease operating as a backbencher, offering his view to anyone willing to listen.
Having a regular show on GB News won’t have done him any harm, either. The survey from which this result came also asked which TV channels Party members follow regularly, and we will publish the result later this week.