We have to start by getting all of the Jacob Rees-Mogg caveats out of the way: Jacob Rees-Mogg is staunchly anti-abortion, even in cases of incest and rape; Jacob Rees-Mogg is still, amazingly, pro-Brexit; Jacob Rees-Mogg admires the political machinations of Nigel Farage and Donald Trump; Jacob Rees-Mogg once slouched down in Parliament in a way that made Caroline Lucas get mad at him. Then we have to cover the “MPs on television” caveats: Matt Hancock shouldn’t have been allowed to reform his image on I’m a Celebrity, Farage shouldn’t have been either, and while I’m at it I don’t like Ed Balls on Good Morning Britain. Now all the caveats are out of the way, a fun one just for me: Jacob Rees-Mogg looks like an umbrella Dracula threw away so he wouldn’t have to take too much baggage on to the ship Demeter. There. Now we can get going.
All that is to say, Jacob Rees-Mogg this week launches a reality show on Discovery+ (from Monday). It’s one of those statements that makes you feel you perhaps made the wrong sandwich choice once in 2014, leapt on to an alternative timeline as a direct result, and now we’re here. But no: ham and cheese was correct, this is really happening. His wife, Helena, is in it, his various children are in it, his castle is in it, his SW1 townhouse is in it, his nanny is in it, a man called Sean who buffs his vintage Bentley is in it, his mother – whom he calls “Lady Rees-Mogg”! – is in it, the buildup to the 2024 general election is in it. There’s a lot of idle playing with cricket balls, dressing too formally for dinner at home, actually saying “yah”, and a big coordinated two-car drive to Boris Johnson’s birthday party. It has to-camera confessionals and scenes of unbelievably familiar domesticity and a few snatched glances of moments you can very much tell they would have preferred had not been captured in full HD by a crew. It is, by any measure you’ve got, fairly impeccable reality TV show-making.
But I do have to be quite boring and question whether it should have been made in the first place, sorry. Let me set out my stall: I don’t think Hancock should ever have been allowed to go on I’m a Celebrity and do his “Mate, mate, hear me out mate: I feel bloody awful about Covid mate” shtick. Even though the public consistently voted for him to consume anuses, he was given a chance to change hearts and minds and probably managed with a few of them, and there’s a squeamish moral grey area there: Hancock should not have been allowed to wash some of the blood from his hands in jungle water just because ITV needed a ratings hit. It would be easy, too, for me to point out that giving cosy-edged reality platforms to people with nerve-janglingly right-leaning opinions – I’ve already done Farage, so I may as well mention “former Apprentice host Donald Trump” here instead – feels like a similarly slippery slope, one that seems harmless until the exact day it isn’t. But none of these people align with my immaculately perfect politics, so it’s easy for me to say that them being on TV is “dangerous, actually”. So do I want to say the same about Jacob Rees-Mogg? Well, hmm.
I’ve chewed on it and decided: weirdly, no. Meet the Rees-Moggs is in the language of the Kardashians but paints a British eccentric unique to our shores. He’s an exceptionally spooky guy – every UK university had a first-year student whose whole bit was “wears a suit to class”, and Rees-Mogg is the final boss you have to kill once you have defeated all of them – and watching him do normal things (go to Greggs, interact with children’s toys, and I have to say it made my fight-or-flight response go off to watch the man look at a television) is one of the more curious and jarring TV experiences I’ve ever had.
He’s so polite it is unnverving – in a way that makes you want to polish your own manners – but possibly what is weirdest of all is seeing him on the campaign trail, looming villainously over some Somerset voter, and them going: “I like him, yeah.” I mean, this is reputation management of the highest order, the softest editing possible, and painting him as a harmless gosh-and-golly goof was exactly what got us into the position known as “Boris Johnson is our Covid prime minister” But from a purely TV perspective – from a purely TV perspective – it’s … listen, I can’t say “good” in case this column is read out one day during an inquest. But it’s very well made.
