Jacob Rees-Mogg

The Honourable Jacob Rees-Mogg MP
Member of Parliament for North East Somerset
Incumbent
Assumed office 6 May 2010
Preceded by	Constituency created
Majority	4,914 (9.6%)
Personal details
Born	150px (1969-05-24) 24 May 1969 (age 55) Somerset, England, United Kingdom
Died	150px
Resting place	150px
Political party	Conservative
Spouse	Helena de Chair
Children	3 sons, 1 daughter
Parent	150px
Residence	West Harptree, Somerset
Alma mater	Trinity College, Oxford

Jacob William Rees-Mogg (born 24 May 1969) is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for North East Somerset since the 2010 general election. Rees-Mogg is on the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party.^[1]

Rees-Mogg is the son of the late William Rees-Mogg, a former editor of The Times. He is married to the heiress Helena de Chair, with whom he has three sons and a daughter.^[2]

Rees-Mogg grew up in Ston Easton in Somerset, before being educated at Eton and subsequently read history at Trinity College, Oxford, becoming president of the University Conservative Association.^[3]

Rees-Mogg set up his own company, Somerset Capital Management in 2007.^{[citation needed]} Previously he was in Global Emerging Markets at Lloyd George Management in London.^{[citation needed]}

Rees-Mogg has courted controversy during previous election campaigns. In 1997 he was Tory candidate for the historically Labour seat of Central Fife. He canvassed a largely working class neighbourhood in his Bentley with his nanny;^[3] he lost in the 1997 election, receiving 9% of the vote.^[4]

In 1999, when it was being rumoured that his received pronunciation accent was working against his chances of being selected for a safe Tory seat, he was defended by letter writers to The Daily Telegraph, one of whom claimed that "an overt form of intimidation exists, directed against anyone who dares to eschew the current, Americanised, mode of behaviour, speech and dress". Rees-Mogg himself stated (in The Sunday Times, 23 May 1999) that "it is rather pathetic to fuss about accents too much", though he then went on to say that "John Prescott's accent certainly stereotypes him as an oaf".^[5] He later said "I gradually realised that whatever I happened to be speaking about, the number of voters in my favour dropped as soon as I opened my mouth."^[6]

Rees-Mogg stood for The Wrekin in Shropshire in 2001, losing to the Labour MP Peter Bradley,^{[citation needed]} who later expressed his view that banning fox hunting was, for him, a class as well as a humane issue.^{[citation needed]} Between 2005 and 2008 Rees-Mogg was the elected Chairman of the Cities of London and Westminster Conservative Association.^{[citation needed]}

He was one of the directors of the Roman Catholic Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth in London who were ordered to resign by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor in February 2008 after protracted arguments over the adoption of a tighter ethical code banning non-Catholic practices such as abortions and Gender Re-Assignment Surgery.^[7]

In March 2009, Rees-Mogg was forced to apologise to Trevor Kavanagh, former political editor of The Sun, after it was shown that a newsletter signed by Rees-Mogg had plagiarised sections of a Kavanagh article that had appeared in the newspaper over a month earlier.^[8]

He was, being the caricature of a "detached" and "other-wordly" Tory, described as Conservative leader "David Cameron’s worst nightmare" by The Times^[9] during the 2010 general election campaign. Rees-Mogg took North East Somerset with a majority of 4,914.^[10]

In the House of Commons, Rees-Mogg has gained a reputation for his humorous speeches and ability to filibuster.^[11]

The ConservativeHome blog rates Rees-Mogg as one of the Conservatives' most rebellious MPs.^[12] He has voted against the government whip on the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, the October 2011 European Union Referendum Motion and the House of Lords Reform Bill 2012.^[13]

He also helped filibuster the Daylight Saving Bill 2010-12 and the Sustainable Livestock Bill 2010-12, thus preventing their passage through Parliament. In his long speech on the Sustainable Livestock Bill, he recited poetry; spoke of the superior quality of Somerset eggs, and mentioned a giant pig called the Empress of Blandings who won silver at the Shropshire Show three years in a row, before moving on to talk about the sewerage system and the Battle of Agincourt.^[11][14][15] He also attempted to amend the Daylight Saving Bill to give the county of Somerset its own time zone, 15 minutes behind London.^[16]

In a debate on London Local Authorities Bill on 7 December 2011, he said that council officials who have the power to issue on-the-spot fines should be forced to wear bowler hats.^[17][18]

In a House of Commons debate on the remuneration of EU staff on 21 February 2012, he used the word floccinaucinihilipilification,^[19] making it one of the longest words recorded in Hansard.^[20]

In an interview with The Independent in January 2013, Rees-Mogg became the first MP since the passing of the House of Lords Act 1999 to express support for a mainly hereditary House of Lords.^[21]

In January 2007 Rees-Mogg married heiress Helena de Chair, a writer on a trade magazine for the oil industry. She is the daughter of Somerset de Chair and his second wife, the former Juliet, Marchioness of Bristol, who, in turn, was the only child of the eighth and last Earl Fitzwilliam.

Part of the ecumenical marriage service in Canterbury Cathedral included a Roman Catholic Tridentine Mass conducted by Dom Aidan Bellenger, the Abbot of Downside Abbey.^[22] The couple's first son was named Peter Theodore Alphege. "The first name is after Helena's grandfather and the last name is that of a saint. They have a daughter, Mary (aged 3 in 2012), and a second son Tom Wentworth Somerset Dunstan Rees-Mogg (born 8 June 2010). Their fourth child, a son named Anselm Charles Fitzwilliam Rees-Mogg, was born 22 June 2012 according to the Daily Mail.

Rees-Mogg's youngest sister, the journalist Annunziata Rees-Mogg, was also a Conservative parliamentary candidate in Somerset but failed to win her seat.^[3]

• Jacob Rees-Mogg MP Official website
• Jacob Rees Mogg MP Conservative Party
• North East Somerset Conservatives
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou
• Jacob Rees-Mogg portrait in the collection of Eton College Paul Brason, Portrait Artist

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