I hope nobody watches Meet the Rees-Moggs

Towards the end of last year, the production company Optomen TV contacted Jacob about the possibility of filming a documentary series on what life was like as an MP. The idea was to start shooting in June, since it was assumed the show would build to the natural finale of an autumn general election and its aftermath. A pilot day was filmed in Somerset in March, when the children were home from school and we hosted our annual meet for the Mendip Farmers Hunt. The producers decided the show could work. Then Rishi Sunak fired the starting gun for the election on 22 May, before we’d signed anything. Jacob took the plunge and agreed to start filming that afternoon. The crew were already waiting when I returned from school with the children.

Jacob – tall and always well-dressed, clean-shaven and brushed – has a natural advantage in front of cameras. Whenever someone has whipped out a camera phone on the campaign trail he’s never thought: ‘I wish I was taller/wearing something more fetching/had done my hair/was wearing some make-up.’ I, on the other hand, neither like how I look on camera (different to the mirror, which is obviously in reverse to reality) nor how my voice sounds (not well-spoken neutral, as inside my head, but awfully posh). I’ve always tried to live by the wise words of nannies throughout the ages – ‘No one’s looking at you, dear’ – but the proverb doesn’t hold true for reality TV. I had to get over myself pronto. I developed a twice-weekly blow-dry habit, which I’m weaning myself off. 

In the unlikely event Johnnie Boden watches the series (we’ve never met, though I think he was at school with my second cousin) he could play a drinking game. Every time he sees me in a Boden summer dress, have a drink.