Why living near my old friend Michael Gove can seriously damage your health

People living within a 25-mile radius of Michael Gove, MP, are more likely to die of cirrhosis of the liver and alcohol-related tumours than anywhere else in the country. There is a direct correlation between (fairly) close proximity to Michael and very high levels of alcohol consumption. A study carried out by researchers from the Liverpool John Moores University discovered that five of Britain’s most alcohol-saturated areas were congregated around Michael’s constituency in Surrey Heath. The only one that wasn’t nearby was Harrogate, in North Yorkshire — and just a cursory check through the clippings shows that Michael delivered a speech there to the Chartered Institute of Housing, in which he was critical of the government’s house-building policy. So, now that we have uncovered the correlation, we must decide what to do about it. The humane answer would be to relocate Michael to a place where his baleful, drink-inducing aura will be of the least danger to human life — Gruinard Island, in the north-west of Scotland, for example, which has recently been pronounced entirely free of anthrax. I favour the humane approach because Michael’s an old friend whom I like very much indeed and I have to say I was shocked by these latest findings. Who would have thought it?

The Gove Correlation was not the conclusion reached by the researchers from John Moores University — that was my reading of their work having drunk most of a bottle of Sancerre left over from a party on Saturday night. It is, of course, a fantastically stupid conclusion. There is indeed a loose correlation between proximity to Michael Gove and what the researchers call heavy recreational drinking, but only a lunatic or an imbecile or a vindictive drunk would suggest a direct causal relationship. The conclusion the people from the university drew was that heavy drinking is not confined to yer working classes.