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. Although if he decides to play, he had better limit the game to every time he sees a different Boden dress, otherwise he’ll be lashed by the end of the first episode. He may need a recovery nap after the episode when we go to France.
For the record, our children are definitely not allowed to play ball games inside, nor climb on furniture. While Alfred and Sixtus were playing up somewhat for the camera crew, but otherwise unsupervised, I was upstairs with Veronica, our nanny, clearing up tea and also being interviewed.
Early in the election campaign I worked out that the Conservatives needed to hold around 150 seats if Jacob was going to have a chance of keeping his. While most polls showed North East Somerset and Hanham turning red in a Labour landslide, exact Conservative seat numbers were all over the place. When the exit poll showed 131 Conservative seats (optimistic, it turned out), that was the crunch moment for me. ‘Pray for the likes of us,’ as Father Michael Clothier of Downside Abbey used to say. Thanks to the peculiarities of British democracy, I got to watch my husband lose his job live on national TV, standing next to someone dressed in a baked-bean balaclava.
Much filmed gets omitted. In the drum-kit shop for Sixtus’s birthday, the cameraman Marcus asked about a Rees-Mogg band and what it would be called. Theoretically possible: Sixtus on drums, obviously; Alfred, trumpet; Thomas, electric guitar; Peter, keyboard; me, vocals. Jacob says he would be our Prince Rupert Loewenstein (the Rolling Stones’ financial manager). I’m not sure Moggadeath has a future though.
We grew fond of the Optomen crew, especially those with us over the summer: Marcus, producer Annabelle and Lucio (until he ditched us for Strictly). They made it fun. The alarming bit was having to promote the show: not just the photoshoot but also two joint and five solo press interviews between us. We’ve been on ITV’s This Morning and GB News twice, including – surreally – Jacob interviewing me on his nightly programme, in some seventh circle of self-reference. Publicity material can develop a life of its own. Discovery+ got Jacob to record a clip using Gen-Z slang – ‘slay!’, ‘main character energy’, ‘Brat Girl Autumn’ and other phrases he’s never heard of – which someone picked up and put on TikTok. I hope for Optomen TV and Discovery+ that the show is a great success, but I also don’t want it to be watched by anyone I know. Jacob points out that it may only be watched by people we know.
Meet the Rees-Moggs is streaming on Discovery+.
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