Michael Gove roars back into favour: Boris gives ‘frenemy’ a lift on dirt bike at Chequers bash – fuelling speculation that’s he’s on track for a Cabinet promotion
- Michael Gove and ‘frenemy’ Boris Johnson rekindled friendship with joint dirt bike ride at high-spirited Chequers party earlier this month
- After years of distrust, the Cabinet Office Minister appears to be back in favour
- Gove’s place is enhanced by growing suspicion between PM and Rishi Sunak
For connoisseurs of the decades-long psychodrama played out between Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, the image was strikingly symbolic: Gove riding on the back of Boris Johnson’s dirt bike, his arms wrapped around Johnson’s waist.
The occasion was a high-spirited birthday party at Chequers earlier this month for Downing Street adviser Henry Newman – a former aide to Mr Gove and a close friend of Mr Johnson’s wife Carrie – which was packed with mutual friends.
A cackling Mr Gove rode pillion on the second-hand Yamaha TTR 125 which Mr Johnson keeps at his grace and favour estate: the Prime Minister likes to recharge at weekends by churning up the Buckinghamshire earth on the 55mph machine, which was a Christmas present from his wife after he won the 2019 General Election.
After years of distrust between Mr Johnson and Mr Gove, the dirt bike vignette is being taken as a sign that the Cabinet Office Minister is back in favour and heading for promotion.
Mr Gove’s position has been enhanced by the growing mutual suspicion between Mr Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak, which came to a head when the Prime Minister made a semi-jocular threat to demote him over a leaked letter he wrote about the UK’s chaotic travel rules.
At a high-spirited birthday party at Chequers earlier this month, a cackling Mr Gove rode pillion on the second-hand Yamaha TTR 125 which Mr Johnson keeps at his grace and favour estate
With Mr Gove no longer viewed within the party as a realistic leadership contender, Mr Johnson can use him as an ally to check Mr Sunak’s power.
But Mr Gove – a ‘frenemy’ of Mr Johnson since their Oxford days, who famously betrayed him by pulling out of his 2017 leadership campaign before running himself – has not lost his ability to stir resentment among Cabinet colleagues, as they nervously anticipate a possible post-Covid reshuffle.
After The Mail on Sunday reported last week that Mr Gove was being tipped to replace Home Secretary Priti Patel, who is being blamed within No 10 for the migrant boats crisis, Ms Patel’s allies launched a rearguard action.
One Tory MP close to Ms Patel said: ‘However much Gove might want the job, it just wouldn’t work.
‘His department has already been dealing with the Channel crossings, but all they came up with was a stupid idea about creating a wave machine to stop the boats reaching the UK.
‘And he would almost certainly pick a fight with the police, which Boris does not want.
‘But, most of all, he has admitted using class A drugs, which would be constantly thrown back at him’.
This is a below-the-belt reference to Mr Gove’s 2019 admission that he had taken drugs ‘on several occasions at social events more than 20 years ago… It was a mistake. I look back and I think, I wish I hadn’t done that’.
Ms Patel’s allies argue that with Mr Johnson planning to announce a crackdown on drugs in the autumn – targeting middle-class users whose dinner-party habits support organised crime – the timing of the promotion would be ‘odd’.
Ms Patel suffered fresh embarrassment last week after she let it be known she wished to expand her responsibilities to include the vacant post of Security Minister – only for No 10 to announce within hours that ex-Education Secretary Damian Hinds was taking the job.
A senior Government source said: ‘I will leave it to you to work out whether it was a coincidence that No 10 moved to appoint someone so quickly after it was reported that Priti wanted to do the job.’
After The Mail on Sunday reported last week that Mr Gove was being tipped to replace Home Secretary Priti Patel, who is being blamed within No 10 for the migrant boats crisis, Ms Patel’s allies launched a rearguard action
Although Downing Street is playing down the chances of an imminent reshuffle, the fallout from the A-level results, which exposed the widening gap between private and state school grades, has revived speculation about Education Secretary Gavin Williamson’s future.
As this newspaper first reported, powerful figures within No 10 have argued for him to be replaced by Treasury Minister Kemi Badenoch, who would lead a ‘war on wokery’.
The Prime Minister has been warned by party whips that Mr Williamson had implied to friends that he could ‘blackmail’ Mr Johnson into keeping him in the Cabinet because of the ‘things he saw’ while running Mr Johnson’s leadership campaign in 2017. Mr Williamson strongly denies making such a threat.
However, one senior Government source poured scorn on the idea of promoting Ms Badenoch – also Equalities Minister – claiming that Mr Sunak has been unhappy with her performance at the Treasury.
The source said: ‘Rishi wants rid of her. There’s no way she is up to being Secretary of State. She’s done absolutely bugger all work in the Treasury. All she wants to do is make provocative comments about wokery stuff and that’s it.’
But a source close to Mr Sunak said: ‘Rishi and Kemi work extremely well together.
She is a dedicated Minister who has been instrumental in driving the Government’s ambitious climate policy forward. She has worked through complex legislation on duties and is helping deliver schemes like Help To Grow that are vital to our economic recovery’.
A spokesman for Ms Patel declined to comment.
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