‘My son received hate mail after the election’

Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has revealed that his 16-year-old son received hate mail after July’s general election.

Speaking to an Edinburgh Festival Fringe audience on Sunday, Sir Jacob said it was an “awful thing to do” and “fundamentally nasty”.

He also said he was “very strongly” considering standing at the next general election after losing the newly-created North East Somerset and Hanham seat to Labour – however he added he was not “absolutely certain”.

Sir Jacob said: “To write to a 16-year-old is just loathsome.”

He added: “It is not my son’s fault that I have the political views that I do and it is cowardly [to write to him]. If you don’t agree with me then you should get in touch with me – put your name on the bottom of it.”

The former Tory minister, who lost by more than 5,000 votes to Labour’s Dan Norris at the 4 July ballot, said his party had “deserved” to lose the election.

Sir Jacob added losing his seat had not been a “shock” and he had written to his children the day before the election saying he would “probably lose”.

“I tried my best to warn them that I was going to lose my seat,” he said.

“We governed badly, we hadn’t done what we told people we would do.

” We put up taxes when we said that we wouldn’t, we hadn’t dealt with migration and we hadn’t governed well.

“I can’t pretend we didn’t deserve it.”