As a long man who slumps, I sympathise with Jacob Rees-Mogg

What to make of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s slump across three seats in the House of Commons earlier this week? Fun fodder for online memes? My favourite put the MP for North East Somerset in an IKEA advert sitting on a sofa on sale for £1066 badged up as a MÖGG. Or a sinister symbol of entitled elite that is out of control?

In truth, I felt a pang of sympathy. I don’t share Jacob Rees-Mogg’s politics and I’m no fan of his foppish dress sense. If you’re going to dress in a self-consciously old-fashioned way, why not go the whole hog and make it Regency-era or late medieval? On meeting Mogg a couple of months ago, however, I recognised immediately that we have a near identical physique.

We were both wearing suits at the time (although mine was not double breasted). We have oval faces, round spectacles and broad shoulders. We are both over six foot, but are relatively slim. We are long you might say.

At the time, he shot me a very odd look which I can only interpret in the following light – he understood that we share a common affliction. We loom. We stoop. And, worst of all, we find it virtually impossible to avoid drifting into a slump while sitting down.

Picture the scene – it’s late in the evening. I’ve finished work. I’m relaxing on the sofa, book in hand. I’ve put on Kind of Blue by Miles Davis on the record player (it’s party time!). I’ve even bought a bottle of special beer from the Co-op.

Perhaps, tonight will be different, I think. I’m wrong, of course.

I spread my legs out akimbo to keep me sitting straight (the sofa is too low to sit forward comfortably). But slowly, slowly, my feet begin to slip further away from my seating position. And just like the evening before and the evening before that, my back gives way inch by inch and inevitably, I end up in a weird slump, an uncomfortable slump, with my back parallel to the floor and my legs splayed at a ridiculous angle, book now held in the direction of the ceiling.

Oops the music has given out. Time to change the record. Up I get. There we go – that’s done. Pop the beer bottle in the recycling while I’m at it. Then back to the sofa. Slowly the slump reinstates itself.

Repeat ad nauseam. This must be how Jacob Rees-Mogg feels about it too.

So, have some human sympathy for the long men, the long of leg and the long of back, and remember too that it’s silly to make sweeping judgements of politicians from one-off photo opportunities. Remember Ed Miliband. Who really looks good eating a bacon sandwich? Remember too that photographs are curious objects that can affect the observer in curious ways.

For in seeing that photograph of Rees-Mogg, I recalled Roland Barthes on the art of the photograph: “In this glum desert, suddenly a specific photograph reaches me; it animates me, and I animate it… this is what creates every adventure.”