He has pretty well everything that a budding statesman could wish for.
He’s got a devoted heiress wife, a brood of six children, a place in the country as well as a splendid town house in Westminster, and a fortune of tens of millions of pounds, thanks to the immense success of the financial advisory company he founded.
Everything, that is, except for a seat in Parliament…
But I can disclose that Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg – booted out by his constituents in 2024 – has been elected to an infinitely more exclusive body than the mewling pit of half-wits that constitutes the House of Commons.
‘He’s got into The XV,’ an admirer tells me, hurriedly explaining that that’s a reference not to any kind of rugby team – an improbable destination for the beanpole Sir Jacob, who memorably described himself as ‘a complete weed’ – but to a very different band of brothers.
‘It’s the Catholic mafia,’ Sir Jacob’s fan adds playfully. ‘A very, very discreet dining club for Roman Catholics. Membership is by invitation only, of course.’
Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, Conservative politician, businessman and broadcaster and former MP
Membership, I’m told, is restricted to only the most eminent of Catholics, generally drawn from a handful of families, such as the Fitzalan-Howards – dukes of Norfolk.
The current duke, who in his hereditary role as Earl Marshal organised and orchestrated the King’s Coronation, declines to discuss the club, though I’m assured that he is ‘the key figure’.
His silence is matched by the usually eloquent Sir Jacob, 56. Asked if his late father, Lord Rees-Mogg, was also a member of The XV, he declines to comment.
But it was undoubtedly his father whose doctrinal example Sir Jacob has done his utmost to emulate, ‘[reading] the catechism to his children over lunch every Sunday as a way of passing on to them the teachings of the Church’, as Michael Ashcroft recorded in his biography of Sir Jacob.
Lord Ashcroft added that the former MP has even had a private chapel built at his house in Somerset, where Catholic Mass is held occasionally.
But I’m assured that conviviality defines The XV almost as much as Catholicism. Its dinners – black-tie affairs – are held at White’s, the gentlemen’s club in St James’s, which remains resolutely an all-male bastion. It’s familiar territory for Sir Jacob. ‘He was lunching there before Christmas,’ a member of White’s tells me.
Sir Mick’s Mel has a topping new year
Melanie Hamrick, 38, Mick Jagger’s girlfriend and an American choreographer, author, and retired ballerina. She donned a magenta top hat on New Year’s Eve
Was Mel inspired by Mick Jagger’s own top hat – which he wore almost two decades before she was born, in The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus?
Life’s a circus with Sir Mick Jagger, but who’s the ringmaster?
The Rolling Stones singer’s girlfriend, Melanie Hamrick, donned a magenta top hat on New Year’s Eve.
‘Happy New Year – ready for a circus,’ said the American former ballerina, 38, who has a nine-year-old son, Deveraux, with Sir Mick, 82.
Was Mel inspired by Jagger’s own top hat – which he wore almost two decades before she was born, in the 1968 concert film The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus?
Sun sets on Laura’s dream
In 2023, A Place In The Sun’s Laura Hamilton, hoping to make a fortune from fashion, became a director of women’s clothing brand Verity & Me.
‘I’ve always loved fashion and wearing beautiful dresses so I decided to launch a brand of my own,’ she gushed at the time. ‘I can’t wait to show you!’
She was photographed wearing a pair of pyjamas that cost £52 and dresses that were £95, ahead of the launch of her first collection in 2023.
However, Laura, 43, resigned from the firm’s board just months later and now the remaining bosses have applied to have the business behind the brand struck from the register at Companies House. Its most recent accounts showed that it was £22,000 in debt.
Why Daniel is laying off career guidance at home
James Bond actor Daniel Craig with his wife Rachel Weisz
He played James Bond and his wife is an Oscar-winning actress, but Daniel Craig is not encouraging their seven-year-old daughter, Grace, to pursue a career in show business.
‘I don’t think it works, because ultimately they are individuals,’ says the actor, 57, who is married to Rachel Weisz, 55, star of The Constant Gardener and The Mummy. ‘And they are going to do what they want to do.
‘When the time comes, they’re going to make their own decisions and it’s probably going to be, “F*** you, Dad… butt out of my business”. So I don’t think you can sort of manipulate it in that way. And if you try, you’re looking for trouble.’
Craig’s daughter Ella Loudon, 33, from his marriage to Fiona Loudon, 57, is, however, an actress and musician.
Simpson’s in the Strand was founded as a chess club in 1828, and restaurateur Jeremy King is bringing the game back when it reopens next month. There’ll be chess-themed evenings. ‘It is a wonderful opportunity to recreate an artistic atmosphere,’ he says.
I can reveal that Aston Cole, the Bath-based property scheme that Princess Anne’s son Peter Phillips founded in 2022, enjoyed a £2 million upturn on the value of its investment property. Its bricks-and-mortar assets rose in value to £7.5 million over the year to December 2024.
