Around the middle of the first episode of Meet The Rees-Moggs, its main subject comments that, as the younger son, he was indulged as a baby. “I’ve been indulged the rest of my life,” Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg goes on, cheerfully. This is unarguable, including in this show.

The very fact that he is getting a six-episode reality show, even one in the obscurity of whatever Discovery+ might be, is indulgent. In Parliament he was indulged by leaders, by fellow MPs, by party activists, and very certainly by journalists. And now he is being indulged by his children. In an era when most public figures go to great lengths to allow their children to grow up out of the public eye, Rees-Mogg has instead invited the cameras to film the home life of his brood of six. Few things bring out the stern-faced protestant in me more strongly than using kids in this way. Although the Rees-Mogg collection of holy relics, to which we shall come, might do it.

Let’s mull the Minor Moggs for a moment. They are a pleasant bunch, but it’s hard to escape the thought that, filmed in their mini dinner suits as they trot in to get fed, they are being served up for our enjoyment. The heart goes out especially to young Anselm, who got to celebrate his birthday by being driven from Somerset to Oxfordshire to attend Boris Johnson’s 60th birthday party. 

It’s an entertaining show, but we don’t learn much: the Rees-Moggs are extremely rich; they have very nice, very large houses; Jacob buys his lunch at Greggs. The one moment in the first episode catching a moment rarely seen is when a voter politely tells the MP that he won’t be voting Conservative this time. On the whole, like his idol Johnson, Jacob has spent so long crafting his public persona that he never slips out of it. It is impossible, though, to completely escape the camera’s scrutiny. The walls of the houses carry an impressively large number of portraits of Jacob. While the family are enjoying the Johnson party, their chauffeur Stan sits in a layby with a bag of crisps, watching football on his phone. This is one of a number of hints that life for the many Rees-Mogg servants (I lost count at seven) may not all be a bed of roses.

Presumably they do at least have access to the Rees-Mogg private chapel. This is where Jacob keeps his relics. The process by which he came by these is fascinating. He explains that it’s forbidden to buy or sell relics, but that trade in their containers is fine. It’s fortunate for Rees-Mogg that the Almighty is so easily hoodwinked. His collection includes a fragment of the true cross, a fragment of the crown of thorns, and a piece of Thomas More’s hair shirt. He’s only confident that the last of these is genuine, though he says the others are helpful to him even if they’re not real. You can see that learning to think in this way would be helpful training for arguing that Boris Johnson is a man of integrity.

Rees-Mogg’s prominence has always been the result of a happy agreement: people enjoy shouting abuse at him, and he enjoys the attention. One of the laugh-out-loud moments comes when Stan (of course) is dispatched to clean the graffiti written on a Conservative sign outside the house of Jacob’s mother: “Posh Twat”. Does that sound distressing for an elderly lady? She and her son discuss it with relish over lunch.

Rees-Mogg occupies the space once taken by Alan Clark, of a Tory so entertaining that they get attention out of all proportion with their political importance. Hang on! You might be muttering. How can I suggest that the Moggster, hero of Brexit and target of a thousand Lord Snooty jokes, is not a key figure of the last decade? Simple: he never mattered very much. When he was chair of the European Research Group, it was his deputy, Steve Baker, who organised the resistance to softer Brexits. He became Leader of the House of Commons, the least significant role in the Cabinet, and in which his main contribution was overseeing the Owen Paterson fiasco. His one big job was Business Secretary, a post he held for two months. You could pick pretty much any other Cabinet minister of the last five years and make a case that they did more.

Perhaps that is why we’re getting this show: Rees-Mogg knows that his political career is over and left little mark. Fearing that the spotlight is disappearing, he now perhaps hopes to take Great Railway Journeys, or dance the mambo on Strictly. Possibly he will get to. He has been indulged all his life.