The Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg has provoked delight and mirth by naming his newborn son and sixth child Sixtus.

Rees-Mogg, MP for North East Somerset, announced the birth on Instagram on Wednesday.

He posted an image of himself cradling Sixtus, with the words: “Helena and I announce with great joy that we have a baby Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher, a brother for Peter, Mary, Thomas, Anselm and Alfred.”

One Twitter user responded: “There’s a man in touch with the challenges of modern life.”

Another said: “The thing about Jacob Rees-Mogg is that his politics [are] horrendous but I can’t bring myself to hate him because he’s from another time.”

And another wrote: “Jacob Rees-Mogg is trending because apparently we’ve had no recent lessons about not taking dangerously inept rich men in politics seriously.”

Sixtus isn’t the only one of the Rees-Mogg brood with a lengthy name. His siblings’ full names are Peter Theodore Alphege, Mary Anne Charlotte Emma, Thomas Wentworth Somerset Dunstan, Anselm Charles Fitzwilliam and Alfred Wulfric Leyson Pius Rees-Mogg.

The Old Etonian’s eccentric image has made him something of a cult figure on Instagram and Twitter. Rees-Mogg is a recent convert to social media, describing it in a recent interview as “great fun”. His Twitter background features a bucolic Somerset landscape.

The sketch writer Quentin Letts famously dubbed him “the honourable member for the early 20th century”. Rees-Mogg himself, a member of an old mining family, has said he is suspicious of politicians who try to present themselves as “men of the people”.



