Mark Steyn’s British fans have been lamenting his departure from GB News a few weeks ago.

However, we have reason to celebrate, because his replacement, Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, had a splendid debut with his State of the Nation show on Monday, February 27, 2023. Rees-Mogg has somewhat of a cult following among British conservatives. :

He has represented North East Somerset since 2010 and regularly walks about his constituency, both town and country, at the weekends to find out what’s on voters’ minds:

Piers Morgan’s show runs concurrently on TalkTV in the 8 p.m. timeslot.

Granted, Monday was Rees-Mogg’s first night, but he managed to beat both Morgan and Sky News between 8 and 9 that evening:

In fact, the traditionally-minded MP had twice as many viewers as Morgan.

Guido Fawkes gives us the BARB ratings (red emphases his):

Jacob took in an average of 79,200 viewers for the hour. Piers, meanwhile, took in a mere 35,300. More than doubling Morgan’s average throughout the show.

In fact, Rees-Mogg beat Sky News, which scored 64,700. Jacob and Piers will face off again tonight – rest assured, Guido will be checking the figures again. Beaten by a part-time presenter, oh Piers…

Well done!

Here are the segments from last night’s programme.

Fortuitously, it was a historic day for the UK, as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen presented the new Windsor Framework for Northern Ireland that afternoon. King Charles also met Ms Von Der Leyen, which was controversial, as the monarch does not get involved in matters political.

It is unclear at the moment whether this will be a suitable replacement for the Northern Ireland Protocol in our post-Brexit nation.

Rees-Mogg opened with the story in his Moggologue:

Here’s the Moggologue in full:

Lee Anderson, the outspoken Red Wall MP who is now deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, was Rees-Mogg’s first guest. They discussed another news item of the day, which was that the first female Speaker of the House of Commons, Labour’s Betty Boothroyd, died at the age of 93. Anderson and Boothroyd both came from working class homes. Anderson said that Boothroyd inspired him to pursue a career in politics:

They also discussed the Windsor Framework, which Anderson sees as a positive replacement for the Northern Ireland Protocol:

Rees-Mogg asked Anderson what it was like switching from the Labour Party to the Conservatives. He said that, while the party switch was easy, because he worked in local government in Ashfield as a Labour councillor and for then-MP Gloria De Piero, some of his friends and family found the decision hard to take, although, he added, a fair number of them voted for him in the general election in 2019:

Here’s the segment in full:

Veteran Conservative MP David Davis was up next. He was the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union from 2016 to 2018. He viewed Rishi’s Windsor Framework positively and thinks that Brexit is mostly ‘done’ now:

You can see more of that interview here:

The segment of the evening was a three-way exchange between Rees-Mogg, retired Labour MP Stephen Pound and historian David Starkey on the King’s association, no matter how vague, with the Windsor Framework. All agreed he should have sat on the sidelines and not met von der Leyen, as the Queen would have done. I could have listened to another several minutes of their discussion:

Here’s the full video:

The show ended with a segment about the rewriting — i.e. censorship — of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. Joining Pound and Starkey was Toby Young:

Here’s the full interview:

State of the Nation, which airs Monday through Thursday evenings, will be good not only for GB News but also for the Conservative Party, bringing a bit of Parliament to television. Jacob Rees-Mogg is an eminently sensible man.