This Former MP Will Star In A Fly-On-The-Wall Documentary

The MP to reality TV pipeline continues. This time, however, we won’t see Jacob Rees-Mogg on Strictly Come Dancing or I’m A Celebrity… like Ed Balls or Matt Hancock. Instead, the former Conservative MP is set to be the subject of a fly-on-the-wall documentary along with his wife, their six children and their nanny. Here’s what to expect – plus when it will premiere.

Meet The Rees-Moggs: Everything We Know So Far

Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and Helena Rees-Mogg

What Is Meet The Rees-Moggs About?

Coming to Discovery+ this winter is a docuseries entitled Meet The Rees-Moggs, promising to ‘lift the lid on the man behind the public image’ and offering ‘a never-before-seen look into his life at home in the 17th century Somerset house where he lives with his wife and six children’.

In July, Rees-Mogg lost his parliamentary seat for North East Somerset (which, following a review of constituencies, became North East Somerset and Hanham) to Labour MP Dan Norris. Did Rees-Mogg see the loss coming? It seems so. Meet The Rees-Moggs follows the family in the run-up to the election and will trace its aftermath as the politician’s 14 year tenure in the Commons comes to an end.

According to The Guardian, Rees-Mogg has said on Meet The Rees-Moggs: ‘Animals, children, an election and a film crew. What could possibly go wrong? This everyday story of Somerset folk is fun to film but may be a bit more Fawlty Towers than Downton Abbey.’

Who Is Jacob Rees-Mogg?

Rees-Mogg has always been an object of curiosity, proudly dressing and behaving in an old fashioned manner. He has a keen interest in old cars and has cultivated a quintessentially British gentleman image. His views are pretty old fashioned, too: he is opposed to same-sex marriage, abortion, immigration and free movement, and he is sceptical of the climate crisis, resisting environmental regulations and stating in April 2022 that ‘we need to be thinking about exploiting every last cubic inch of gas from the North Sea. We are not going for net zero tomorrow – 2050 is a long way off.’

Born in Hammersmith in 1969 to Gillian Morris and William Rees-Mogg, editor of The Times, Rees-Mogg was educated at the Dragon School and Eton College before heading off to Trinity College, University of Oxford to study history. Before running for parliament, he cut his teeth in finance, eventually co-founding Somerset Capital Management. In 2007, Rees-Mogg married writer Helena Anne Beatrix Wentworth Fitzwilliam de Chair, and the couple has lived in their home Gournay Court since 2010, a Grade II* listed former Red Cross hospital in West Harptree, Somerset. A practising Catholic family, together they have six children between seven and 17 years old, five sons and one daughter, mostly named for medieval saints: Peter Theodore Alphege, Mary Anne Charlotte Emma, Thomas Wentworth Somerset Denton, Anslem Charles Fitzwilliam, Alfred Wulfric Leyson Pius, Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher.

Despite so many children, Rees-Mogg happily declared in 2017 that he has never changed a nappy, saying: ‘I don’t think nanny would approve because I’m sure she’d think I wouldn’t do it properly’. (Labour MP Harriet Harman famously called him a ‘deadbeat dad’ in response.) ‘Nanny’ is the job title of Veronica Crook, who is not only Rees-Mogg’s family nanny today, but she also cared for Rees-Mogg when he was a child himself in the 1960s; she will, naturally, also star in Meet The Rees-Moggs.

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All five episodes of Meet The Rees-Moggs will be released on Discovery+ on 5 December 2024. discoveryplus.com