Jacob Rees-Mogg opens up on election plans, Liz Truss and his son's 'hate mail', at Edinburgh Festival Fringe

The former Tory minister, who lost the constituency of North East Somerset to Labour by more than 5,000 votes at the July 4 ballot, told an Edinburgh Festival Fringe audience his party "deserved" to lose the election.

Sir Jacob was appearing in the Scottish capital on Sunday as part of The Political Party with Matt Forde show.

The outspoken politician said he was not "absolutely certain" he would seek election in 2029, but told the McEwan Hall audience that his recent election loss was not a "shock".

He said: "I am not absolutely certain, but I love politics and I love being in the Parliament. So I am thinking very strongly about standing again."

Sir Jacob said he knew his party could not "overcome a 20 per cent deficit in the opinion polls", adding: "I wrote to my children at boarding school before the election to say 'look, I will probably lose'. I tried my best to warn them that I was going to lose my seat.

"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."

But the former Tory MP praised previous prime minister Rishi Sunak , adding he was "very impressed" that he had handled the election result with "great dignity".

And speaking about the government of former Tory prime minister Liz Truss – of which he was business and energy secretary – he said: "I think the attacks on her have become deeply unpleasant and go beyond the normal political criticism and have become very personal. She is not a bad person."

Sir Jacob also told the audience of the impact being a politician had on his family, adding his eldest son, aged 16, received hate mail following the election.

"I think to send a piece of hate mail to a 16-year-old because you don't like his father is an awful thing to do and just fundamentally nasty," he said.

"It is not my son's fault that I have the political views that I do and it is cowardly, because if you don't agree with me then you should get in touch with me – put your name on the bottom of it. But to write to a 16-year-old is just loathsome."

Sir Jacob spoke after Tory leadership contender Kemi Badenoch said the Equality Act being misinterpreted had “fed a lot of the discontent” seen in communities across the UK.

The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society, replacing previous anti-discrimination laws in relation to disability, age, gender and race with a single Act.

During her tenure as minister for women and equalities, Ms Badenoch was critical of the Equality Act, specifically relating to trans women in female spaces.

In an online rally, Ms Badenoch was asked about society “becoming more factionalised”.

She said: “I think that one of the things we need to strongly emphasise is equality under the law. There are too many people who have misinterpreted the Equality Act and think that there are different groups which are protected in different ways. That is not true."