Diary – 4 October 2018

A weekend news report says Environment Secretary Michael Gove’s childhood has been scrutinised by colleagues ‘for clues to understanding this most paradoxical of politicians — the popular, ultra-courteous free-thinker who, by knifing Boris Johnson in the 2016 Tory leadership election, became a byword for treachery’. Gove was adopted as a baby and has never sought to meet his birth parents. He speaks fondly of the Aberdeen couple who adopted him. While the article concerned was generally favourable to Gove, the line about colleagues scrutinising his childhood jarred. It seemed to suggest childhood adoption might have inclined him to later-in-life treachery, as if that was the sad result of giving a child a home. Back-stabbing is hardly unknown in frontline politics. If you want a friend, buy a dog, aspirants to No. 10 are advised. Gove is certainly ultra-courteous, almost an Aberdonian version of Jacob Rees-Mogg. His soft word often turns away wrath.