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I buried my face in my hands as Jacob Rees-Moggs’ 15-year-old daughter Mary turned to the camera and admitted that she and her family have posh accents.
It’s a moment like many others, that will spawn a thousand memes when Meet The Rees-Moggs airs on Discovery+ from December 2.
The fly-on-the-wall show follows Jacob Rees-Mogg and his family in the run-up to and aftermath of the July 2024 election, which saw the polarising MP lose his North East Somerset and Hanham seat to Labour’s Dan Norris.
Producers must have rubbed their hands with glee when the former Tory MP agreed to allow cameras into his home(s) to film family life.
It’s perfect reality TV fodder and great publicity for him – but his kids? Allowing cameras to film them at home, where they should feel safe and secure, is likely to be a decision he’ll live to regret.
I know, because I did the same to my children and they haven’t forgiven me.
Eleven years ago, I applied to be in a Finnish documentary called Au Pairit Lontoossa about au pairs working in London.
I got a free Finnish au pair for six weeks provided by the production company in 2013. It was a godsend as I desperately needed help with the kids so I could concentrate on my work as a freelance journalist.
Plus, I loved the idea of being in a TV show to add a bit of glamour and excitement to my otherwise humdrum existence.
An au pair called Mira Lepistö moved in with us in October 2013 and every week, a Finnish TV crew came to our house to film. My husband said he didn’t want to be involved but my daughters thought it was exciting, and the process ran smoothly. It was fun, and the crew was lovely.
However, when I watched the footage, I was shocked at how precocious my daughters were – but only because they played up for the cameras just like Rees-Moggs’ son Sixtus, aged six, does when he’s asked a question about his dad and says, ‘His breath stinks’.
A great TV moment but one that will probably plague the poor boy for years to come. I can only imagine the teasing he’ll get from his school friends.
A few years ago, one of my daughters’ friends found Au Pairit Lontoossa online, took a sound clip of her and edited it into a funny video. No malice was intended and while my daughter accepted it with good grace, she confessed to feeling embarrassed and told me she hated the way she’d come across on TV.
Her sister felt the same and both were angry that I’d exposed them to unwanted attention.
From watching the first episode of Meet The Rees-Moggs, Jacob Rees-Mogg and his wife Helena appear to relish looking foolish on TV with no attempt to temper their behaviour.
At first it looks as if they’re sending themselves up and then you realise that they really do dress up in black tie attire for supper on a Friday evening when the rest of us are having a bargain bucket.
Their eldest kids, Peter and Thomas, are safely out of the camera’s way at boarding school in episode one, but they are featured on the publicity shots for the show, and I fear that along with his other children – Sixtus, six, Alfred, eight, Anselm, 11 and Mary, 15 – they are at risk of being horrendously bullied.
They may have given their permission to feature in the show, but they are too young to understand the consequences – such as trolling, bullying or just downright embarrassment later down the line.
When you appear in print or on TV, a past version of yourself is preserved for all eternity. The content is easily accessible, and it can return to haunt you. What if a future employer sees it? Or a new partner?
Children are not an extension of their parents. They rely on adults to protect them and preserve their privacy.
Adults with big egos are welcome to hog the limelight and I admit, I was fascinated to see that the Rees-Moggs have the same nanny, Veronica Cook, who looked after Jacob as a baby (the poor woman looked exhausted) and I sat there open-mouthed at the size of his 17th-century country pile with a seemingly Downton Abbey-sized team of staff: I saw cleaners, ironers, gardeners and an odd-job man.
However, watching the Rees-Moggs children act up for the cameras made me cringe. None of them come across well as, unlike their famous dad, they haven’t had any media training or life experience to draw on. They could end up as collateral damage for his PR purposes.
It’s great television but he should have left the kids out.
Let’s hope, for his sake, that they forgive him.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.
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