Michael Gove has just announced he is standing down at the election. He spent the past few days agonising privately over the decision, and published a letter on Twitter paying tribute to the Conservative party’s legacy in government – mostly his legacy, in fact. He names education reform, funding for modernising prisons and rehabilitation, progressive environmental policies, levelling up, housing reform, Brexit and building safety. It is notable that he says he was ‘pleased to be able to introduce the most wide-ranging reforms to leasehold, social housing, and supported housing in a generation’. That is true, but the leasehold reforms did not go as far as Gove had wanted, and his attempts to reform the private rented sector were also frustrated by colleagues.
He writes that ‘we have a record in government of which we can be truly proud. and we have a Prime Minister who I know exemplifies the patriotism, hard work, sense of selfless service, clarity of purpose which are the very best virtues of our party’. He adds that ‘I will do everything I can to support him, and every Conservative candidate, in this election’.
Gove’s letter also writes about the downsides of political life: ‘I also know the toll office can take, as do those closest to me’, which suggests his decision is as much about his own personal circumstances as it is about the likelihood of a Conservative party being in opposition in the next parliament. But it is still not a good look for Rishi Sunak, who has had a very miserable first few days on the campaign trail and who is now losing one of the few Tories who got anything done in government.
At the Cabinet meeting where Sunak told his colleagues that he was calling the election for 4 July, Gove told the Prime Minister ‘who dares, wins’. He clearly doesn’t personally dare this time.
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