‘How to profit from the world’s water crisis’: a dig into Annunziata Rees-Mogg’s articles

Annunziata Rees-Mogg, sister of arch-Eurosceptic Tory backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg, is a freelance journalist who has written for several conservative publications and is now standing as a candidate for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party.

As deputy editor of MoneyWeek, she wrote numerous pieces including one in 2007 headlined: “How to profit from the world’s water crisis”.

The lengthy piece notes that “four children die each minute from illness caused by a lack of drinking water” before launching into a discussion of how to “profit from the world’s shortage of water”.

Alongside investment in infrastructural solutions such as desalination and improved water supply, Rees-Mogg recommends companies that are buying up water rights in US states.

“The region is already suffering from water shortages, which are getting worse,” enthuses the reporter. “By holding a substantial number of water rights, [the company] ‘is turning water into money’.”

In a 2005 article on the same subject Rees-Mogg could barely bring herself to attribute this money-spinner of a problem to man-made climate change.

“So what’s going on?” she asks. “It’s hard to say … according to the mainstream view of global warming, ‘when the Earth heats up under the influence of so-called greenhouse gases, the effect leads to droughts, heat-waves, storms and floods’, so assuming the mainstream view has some validity, that’s part of it.”

In a 2005 article entitled “A way to play the ageing population” she wrote of the massive pre-tax profits of Care UK, a company that “wants to be at the forefront of the part-privatisation of the health service”.

An ageing population is bad news for the government, but great news for companies like this, she writes, noting that state-funded provision accounts for 75% of their beds.

“These are long-term contracts, providing a good income,” she says, paraphrasing another commentator. “The Care [UK] story looks good.”

As spotted by The New European’s Steve Anglesey, Rees-Mogg showed her unerring business sense in 2005 with an article titled “Google: don’t join the mania”.

“It’s all exciting stuff and there is no doubt that Google is an exceptional company, but does that really justify its current share price of $410?” asked Rees-Mogg. “Unrealistic expectations usually bring disappointing returns and the odds are they will this time too.”

Google shares at time of publication are $1,134.43.

A strike of German workers in 2006 would hurt the economy, claimed another headline.

Public sector workers were responding to a proposed increase in their hours from 38.5 to 40 with no extra pay, a situation framed by Rees-Mogg as workers pushing “for shorter hours”.

Her review of the news media coverage focused heavily on commentators who said: “this will be highly inconvenient to the rest of the population” and “the workers are digging their own graves” when “the economic recovery needs all the help it can get”.

In the event, unions agreed that public sector worker hours needed to become more flexible and the strike secured a promise of wage hikes by 2008.

In April, Rees-Mogg revealed that she had decided to stand as Nigel Farage’s lead candidate for the East Midlands in the European elections.