The National:

AN MP has creatively sent a message to Jacob Rees-Mogg in the form of a very apt Christmas present.

The Leader of the House of Commons, along with the rest of the Tory party, is often described as “Victorian” thanks to not only his appearance and demeanour, but his views on how society should operate.

Just yesterday the Tory MP said that Unicef should be “ashamed” for helping to feed struggling children in the UK. It is the first time in the UN agency’s 70-year history that they have had to step in to fund food parcels here.

Labour MP Zarah Sultana raised the subject in the House, comparing the plight of struggling kids to the increasing fortunes of Tory donors during the coronavirus pandemic.

READ MORE: Jacob Rees-Mogg says charity should be ‘ashamed’ for helping poor in Britain

It emerged yesterday that about half of the £16 billion worth of UK Government contracts made during the pandemic went to companies run by “friends and associates of politicians in the Tories or with no prior experience or a history of controversy”.

After Sultana called on Rees-Mogg’s government to “end the grotesque inequality that scars our society”, he accused Unicef – yes, the charity – of “playing politics”.

“It is a political stunt of the lowest order,” he stated.

His comments were widely criticised, with the SNP’s Tommy Sheppard calling them “ridiculous” and “out of touch”.

“The scandal is that Unicef have had to step in to feed hungry children in the UK – it is the UK Government that should be ashamed of itself,” he said.

This morning Sultana told social media she had been encouraged by the Speaker to show some “Christmas spirit” to Rees-Mogg, and had followed through on the advice.

The MP for Coventry South shared a signed copy of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, in which she had written: “Jacob, it seems this wasn’t on Eton’s reading list. Merry Christmas, Zarah.”

She added in her post: “His comments to me about Unicef don’t deserve [Christmas spirit], but I thought I’d try it all the same.”

It’s certainly not the first time Rees-Mogg will have been compared to Scrooge, but one can hope this time he too will be visited by three ghosts who can show him the error of his ways.