Michael Gove | The Spectator columnists & writers

You wait 11 years for a Tory leadership election and then three come along in quick succession. The first in which I had a vote was in 2005. In August of that year my candidate, David Cameron, was being told to fold his tents. The final choice was a foregone conclusion: it would be a battle between the big beasts, David Davis and Ken Clarke. The Cameroon cohort in parliament at that point was more notable for quality – Boris Johnson, George Osborne, Oliver Letwin, Nick Soames – than for quantity. They may have made a fine first eleven but it was a struggle to find a twelfth man (or woman). Cameron, however, was convinced he had to make his case; to tell the truth, do or die. He was determined the party had to modernise.

The privilege of public service

Michael Gove gave the Ditchley Annual Lecture on Saturday in which he discussed the responsibility of government and the need for Whitehall reform. The full speech is below. Writing in his Prison Notebooks, ninety years ago, the Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci defined our times. “The crisis consists precisely of the fact that the inherited is dying – and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear”. Gramsci’s analysis was developed between 1929 and 1935. The stability of the Edwardian Age – of secure crowns, borderless travel, imperial administrative elites and growing economic globalisation – was a memory. The inherited world of aristocratic liberalism had gone.

How I could get a better Brexit deal

There are things that we can do which will change the way in which we leave the European Union. I think that, critically, one of the issues that caused me particular concern has been the backstop. And it's caused me concern for two reasons. One: as a unionist I didn't like the idea of any part of our United Kingdom being treated differently. And secondly, as someone who wants all the benefits of a full Canada-style free trade agreement I don't want to have some of the customs restrictions that are implicit in the backstop. At the last meeting at Strasbourg, the EU committed to working alternative arrangements that could obviate the need ever to go into the backstop or could ensure that we actually replace it. I think that there are ways in which we can work with the Irish government in order to ensure that we either need never go in or if we are in that it can very quickly be superseded.

Transcript: Michael Gove’s barnstorming speech in no-confidence debate

In the no-confidence motion today, Michael Gove gave one of the best speeches of his parliamentary career, praising Labour moderates and launching an excoriating attack on Jeremy Corbyn. Here’s an edited transcript. [This] has been a passionate debate characterised by many excellent speeches. Perhaps the bravest and the finest speech that came from the opposition benches was given by the member for Barrow-in-Furness. It takes courage – and he has it. Having been elected on a Labour mandate representing working class people to say that the leader of the party that you joined as a boy is not fit to be prime minister: he speaks for the country. And that takes us to the speech from the Shadow Secretary of State [Tom Watson].

Full text: Michael Gove’s Conservative conference speech

Our island nation has been defined by its relationship with the sea. It has been our doorway to global trade, a treasure house of oil and gas, and the home to teeming stocks of fish. But now our oceans are in danger. Danger from climate change, from chemical residues, from exploitation and indeed from plastic. The equivalent of a dumper truck of plastic is dropped in the sea every minute of every day. Unless we change course, by the year 2050 the seas will contain more plastic than fish. We cannot, and we will not, allow that to happen. Which is why we need, in the words of Winston Churchill, action this day. And we are acting. Already the plastic bag charge has cut the number distributed by almost 90 per cent. We are unleashing the innovative energy of our scientists, and the entrepreneurial flair of our businesses, to develop new greener products that are already generating new jobs.

Michael Gove’s Conservative conference speech, full text

It’s wonderful to be here in Manchester - speaking to you as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The fact that I’m on this stage this year is proof that this Government is committed to recycling. And, let me tell you, no-one is a bigger supporter of re-using once discarded material than me. So I’m naturally keen on politicians coming back to the frontline from a period of doing other things. But I do have a problem when those politicians return to the fray with a message that - in their absence - the public have got it wrong. When Tony Blair or Vince Cable tell us that the referendum decision to leave the EU must be overturned, that the votes of 17.4 million people should be disregarded, that we should exit from Brexit and stay in the European Union - then I feel it’s time to stand up for something precious, something special to us all, something that defines us a nation.

I may disagree with him, but George Osborne’s first duty is to his readers

I may disagree with George Osborne on the odd issue. Like Britain’s relationship with the EU, our trading future and the exercise of democratic sovereignty. And as a Conservative minister, I certainly sometimes wince at the criticism his paper directs at the government of which I’m proud to be a part. Indeed, wince is putting it mildly. But no one can deny that, in journalistic terms, he’s proving a brilliant editor of the Evening Standard. He’s made the paper talked about in a way it hasn’t been since Paul Dacre edited it in the 1990s. He’s produced some great front pages. And he’s put the paper at the heart of critical debates Londoners care about. Some of my colleagues, understandably, do much more than wince in the face of his paper’s criticism of the government.

Embarrassing photos are a speciality of mine

As pictures go, it could be career death. An amazing young talent caught in a compromising position with two older men. And it’s on my computer. The talent in question is Jack Whitehall, the brilliant actor/comedian, star of Decline and Fall and Bad Education, who was appearing at the Hammersmith Apollo last week. I went with my children to see the show and, afterwards, thanks to the kindness of an old friend, we were invited backstage to hobnob with Jack. My son and daughter posed for pictures with their idol and then their place by his side was taken by two less innocent characters. Jack’s father Michael is one of the greatest film and theatrical agents of our time, as well as a mordantly witty raconteur and on-screen foil for his son.

Diary - 27 July 2017

Diary - 19 January 2017

Donald Trump was gushing about one European leader in his Times interview this week. But it was the wrong one. The President-elect told me that he was delighted that he’d been congratulated on his election by the ‘very fine gentleman’ who was the ‘head of the European Union’. ‘Mr Juncker?’ I ventured. ‘Ah, yes,’ he replied. Inaccurately as it turns out. For the European president who’d rung to congratulate the American president-elect was not the European Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, but the European Council president Donald Tusk. Many of my colleagues will, I’m sure, regard Mr Trump’s error as proof of the folly of electing an unschooled barbarian to the White House. I think it says rather more about the problem of having five different, unelected presidents of the EU.

‘Whatever charisma is, I don’t have it’ – full text of Michael Gove’s leadership speech

This past week has been a momentous one for our country, the like of which we have not seen for generations. Expectations have been upended, conventional wisdoms overturned, our nation’s destiny changed. At a time like this -- a hinge in history -- two paths beckon. We can either try to muddle through and hope for the best. Or we can lean in, embrace the change the British people voted for and shape it in our interests -- facing the challenges of the days ahead with cool heads and making the most of the new opportunities open to us with resolute and daring hearts. I am here today to argue for that second path -- the path of change -- embarking on a journey to reach a renewed Britain -- optimistic, open to the world, a place of hope and healing.

Michael Gove: why I’m standing for the Tory leadership

The British people voted for change last Thursday. They sent us a clear instruction that they want Britain to leave the European Union and end the supremacy of EU law. They told us to restore democratic control of immigration policy and to spend their money on national priorities such as health, education and science instead of giving it to Brussels. They rejected politics as usual and government as usual. They want and need a new approach to running this country. There are huge challenges ahead for this country but also huge opportunities. We can make this country stronger and fairer. We have a unique chance to heal divisions, give everyone a stake in the future and set an example as the most creative, innovative and progressive country in the world.

Did Stephen King write the In campaign’s script?

One of the most striking things about the debate on Britain’s future relationship with Europe is that the case for staying is couched overwhelmingly in negative and pessimistic terms, while the case for leaving is positive and optimistic. Those of us who want to Leave believe Britain’s best days lie ahead, that our country has tremendous untapped potential which independence would unleash and our institutions, values and people would make an even more positive difference to the world if we’re unshackled from the past. In contrast, the In campaign want us to believe that Britain is beaten and broken, that it can’t survive without the help of Jean-Claude Juncker and his Commission looking after us and if we dare to assert ourselves then all the terrors of the earth will be unleashed upon our head.

Michael Gove: Why I’m backing Brexit

For weeks now I have been wrestling with the most difficult decision of my political life. But taking difficult decisions is what politicians are paid to do. No-one is forced to stand for Parliament, no-one is compelled to become a minister. If you take on those roles, which are great privileges, you also take on big responsibilities. I was encouraged to stand for Parliament by David Cameron and he has given me the opportunity to serve in what I believe is a great, reforming Government. I think he is an outstanding Prime Minister. There is, as far as I can see, only one significant issue on which we have differed. And that is the future of the UK in the European Union. It pains me to have to disagree with the Prime Minister on any issue.

Faith is left, right. . . and central

There was, of course, something very special about the House of Commons debate on Syria earlier this month. The moral challenge of how to face those who embrace evil without limits, the long shadows and sombre memories generated by military actions past, the divisions within parties and between friends, the wrestling with conscience that brought good men and women close to tears. The importance of what the House of Commons was being asked to authorise inspired outstanding speeches, most notably of all, Hilary Benn’s. While I was listening to the shadow foreign secretary, I noticed a hunched figure in the gallery also held spellbound by the speech, his head occasionally nodding in silent and respectful appreciation.

In defence of Christianity

Jeremy Paxman was on great form last week, reminding us that when it comes to being rude to prime ministers he has no peers. Jeremy’s rudeness is, of course, magnificently bipartisan. However elegant the sneer he displayed when asking David Cameron about Stephen Green, it was as nothing compared to the pointed disdain with which he once asked Tony Blair about his faith. Was it true, Jeremy inquired, that he had prayed together with his fellow Christian George W. Bush? The question was asked in a tone of Old Malvernian hauteur which implied that spending time in religious contemplation was clearly deviant behaviour of the most disgusting kind. Jeremy seemed to be suggesting that it would probably be less scandalous if we discovered the two men had sought relief from the pressures of high office by smoking crack together.

Nature belongs at the heart of school life

History, Edmund Burke wrote, is ‘a pact between the dead, the living and the yet unborn.’ Nowhere is this pact more important than in our relationship with nature. Conservative governments have always sought to protect and enhance the natural environment – whether through Disraeli’s Public Health Act, which sought to limit the environmental impact of the industrial revolution; or Eden’s Clean Air Act, which helped lift the London smog. We shouldn’t forget it was Margaret Thatcher’s drive to cut sulphur emissions that stopped the acid rain which was damaging our woodlands and killing the fish in our lakes and rivers. It’s not just a safe and secure environment we are obliged to bequeath our children – but a love of nature, an appreciation of natural history, and an awareness of how human behaviour affects the world around us.

Michael Gove: My debt to Jade Goody and the future of school reform

In shaping education policy I have been influenced by many people... But two particular individuals have influenced me more than any others. The Italian Marxist thinker - and father of Euro-Communism – Antonio Gramsci. And the reality television star Jade Goody. Let me explain my admiration for Jade first. When she first appeared on our screens in Big Brother Jade was regarded as paragon of invincible ignorance. She was derided and mocked because she thought that Cambridge was in London. On being told that Cambridge is in East Anglia, she assumed that to be abroad, and referred to it as 'East Angular'. Her other misconceptions included the belief that Rio de Janeiro was a person and not a city. It seemed to me at the time, and seems to me now, a sort of double cruelty to have mocked Jade for these errors.

Let’s set schools free

Our dismal education system means that too often poverty is a life sentence, says Michael Gove. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Schools can be freed from stifling state controlI owe Peter Bazalgette an apology. A very big apology. Peter is the man who brought Big Brother to our TV screens. His genius in spotting the potential of the original show has brought him riches and helped Channel 4 fund years of genuinely creative TV. But at a price I used to think far too high.I used to write a regular column in the Times and I took advantage of my platform there to denounce Mr Bazalgette for using his undeniable intelligence to exploit the stupidity, indeed more properly the frailty, of others for his own ends. I thought there was a certain cruelty in deliberately contriving a situation in which members of the public would feud, scheme, bully and embarrass each other for our entertainment.

We must break down the Berlin Wall in schools

He who controls the past, George Orwell argued, controls the future. Orwell’s warning resonates all the more powerfully as the government considers the erasure of history from the primary curriculum. A sense of the past is a precious thing. And not to know history, as Cicero argued, is to remain a child for ever.Orwell, as a student and satirist of the Soviet system, would have appreciated the special value of knowing what passed for progress in the communist world. And a knowledge of Soviet history is particularly precious when it comes to examining what’s happening in our education system at present.One of the grim everyday realities of life before the Berlin Wall came down was the grossly unjust way in which two parallel economies operated within one political system.

I admired Tony Blair. I knew Tony Blair. Prime Minister, you are no Tony Blair

There are few feuds as destructive as the squabble over a legacy. In Bleak House, the case of Jarndyce vs Jarndyce provides Charles Dickens with one of fiction’s most debilitating contests — a battle over an inheritance which blights all those involved. But Westminster is still, nevertheless, absorbed by the struggle to lay claim to a legacy. The inheritance which is the object of so much attention is the right to be recognised as the ‘heir to Blair’. When the former prime minister left office the general consensus among commentators was that he had overstayed his welcome. Those of us writing in 2003 that he was, at last, proving himself a proper reformer were a small band. Those of us still arguing, as of 2006, that he was now at his best and Labour would be mad to get rid of him were roundly ridiculed.

An act of evil that recalled the atrocities of the SS

Seldom can a New Year have dawned so bleakly as 2008 and rarely can a news story have spoken of evil so starkly as the New Year’s Day report from Kenya of children being deliberately burnt alive inside a church. The calculated, heartless wickedness of the act recalls one of the most notorious atrocities of the second world war, when the SS herded the women and children of Oradour in France into the village church and then set the building alight. And there are more recent echoes from another genocide. The principle that the Church should provide a sanctuary from violence and hatred was breached by the actions of individuals during the Rwandan horrors of 1994. The revelation that certain nuns and priests had acted as handmaidens to the Hutu campaign of slaughter underlined just how deep into depravity Rwanda sank 13 years ago.

Winning the Cold War

John O’Sullivan has done much more with this book than provide three potted biographies; he has laid out a compelling account of how the Cold War was won, furnished us with a manual of political leadership and told us the inner secrets of a love story.At the heart of this story of the Eighties, a decade O’Sullivan rightly champions, is the remarkable relationship between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. The strength of their bond was at the time regarded as semi-scandalous, a betrayal by the British Prime Minister of her first loyalty, to her country, in favour of a wild ideological fling.For those of us who were undergraduates when both were in power one of the trials of university life was finding one particular poster in all too many student bedrooms.

Not what Europe wants to hear

Between the revolution and the firing squad, a Russian aristocrat once observed, there is always time for a bottle of champagne. Between the demographic disaster and the collapse of Western civilisation, Mark Steyn appears to believe, there’s always time for a rip-roaring op-ed and a series of blistering jokes.No writer I can think of manages to combine utter bleakness about mankind’s prospects with a genius for one-liners like Steyn. More gloomily pessimistic about our civilisation’s future than Peter Hitchens at a fetish night in Heaven, and yet consistently funnier than any mere humorist or jobbing stand-up, Steyn is a master of gallows humour. And in this book we Europeans are the condemned men.I know that for many of my fellow panty-waisted, cheese-eating, surrender monkeys being harangued about our propensity for cultural suicide by cheerleaders for Bush can grate a little.

Anglo- German attitudes

One of the most dangerous tastes any British politician can admit to is a tendresse for the Teutonic. During the first world war the Liberal cabinet minister Haldane was compelled to resign because of his pro-German sympathies. It was not that Haldane harboured any political affection for Wilhelmine militarism, or had exhibited any slackness in his war work. He had been one of the most pro-war of Asquith’s divided ministry and as war minister had vigorously prepared British forces for confrontation with Germany. But Haldane was also a sensitive and open-minded intellectual with a deep interest in German culture and philosophy. For that he earned the scorn of contemporary polemicists, with cartoonists depicting him in his library surrounded by volumes of ‘Cant’ and Rudyard Kipling denouncing him as ‘indubitably a Hunnomite’.

Diary - 22 April 2005

No job quite prepares you for life as a parliamentary candidate. But I suspect that a period as a monk would equip you pretty well. We are not actually obliged to take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience but observance of the last two is certainly advisable. And life on the hustings does require a certain asceticism. Of all the little pleasures which I miss, now that the election campaign is in earnest, the greatest deprivation is being parted from my new mistress. She’s a delightful little thing, and I’d long yearned to get my hands on her, but my clumsy fumblings had ended in repeated failure, until last November. Which was when I finally passed my driving test, at the seventh attempt. And since then I and my Skoda Fabia have been inseparable companions.

Labour’s heavies make the Sopranos look like the Vienna Boys’ Choir

Watching Labour’s 2005 election campaign unfold, I’m afraid words fail me. The great Democrat governor of New York Mario Cuomo once remarked that ‘we campaign in poetry but we govern in prose’. And even though I struggle to find the language to do justice to Labour’s campaign, one poet does capture their approach perfectly: Rudyard Kipling. Seeing Alastair Campbell, Peter Mandelson and Alan Milburn on the offensive irresistibly brings back some lines from ‘The Gods of the Copybook Headings’. ‘The Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,/ And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire.’ Under their direction, the government has reverted to its worst instincts — to smear, threaten and distort.

Power to the people

As a journalist I got used to asking questions. As an apprentice politician I’ve had to get used to answering them. And that has meant learning all over again that the simplest questions to ask are the trickiest to answer. Most of my acquaintances have been extraordinarily encouraging about my decision to relinquish a journalistic career at the Times in the hope of being elected as the MP for Surrey Heath. But the father of one friend was perplexed. Sufficiently so to ask the question I least expected. It wasn’t ‘Why have you done it?’ He could quite understand why someone would want to give up the frustrations of shouting on the sidelines and see if they could make any difference on the pitch. What he couldn’t understand was why I’d decided to stand as a Conservative.

Terminal depression

In all its long history, the parliamentary Tory party has never been so depressed. If a doctor were to observe its current behaviour, he would put the patient on suicide watch. When I spoke to Conservative MPs this week it was hard to find any spark of optimism, breath of hope or relish for the fight. Whether they are former ministers from the glory days of the Eighties or coming men who entered Parliament while the Tories have been in opposition, a universal darkness covers all. They feel saddled with a leader whom few imagine capable of winning an election, but most fear to remove. Even those who do believe that a change of leader would help restore their fortunes are profoundly disturbed by the allegations being made about Mr Duncan Smith’s payment of Commons fees to his wife Betsy.

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