Don’t write off Michael Gove

No senior politician has ever possessed a talent for upsetting prime ministers to match that of Michael Gove’s.

David Cameron unfriended him after the EU referendum, having believed Gove had assured him he would campaign for Remain only to see him mastermind the triumphant Leave operation. While Boris Johnson was forgiven for his front-of-house Brexit role, Gove was forever damned.

Theresa May then left him out of her first cabinet as a calculated rebuke for his spectacular betrayal of Johnson during the 2016 leadership election by which time a ‘Game of Thrones’ mentality appeared to have completely overtaken him.

Johnson himself last month fired Gove from the cabinet before he could resign, with Downing Street sources describing him as ‘a snake’.

Now Gove has incurred the wrath of Liz Truss before she has even taken up residence in No. 10. After having in the past lined up against Truss in cabinet tussles over such matters as the impact of new trade deals on UK farming and animal welfare issues, he will have known that he was already in a tight spot with the PM-to-be.

Gove’s saving grace is that he appears to be one of few Conservative MPs with the ability to make the civil service get things done

His interview in the Times in which he lambasts her tax-cutting plans as favouring FTSE 100 executives over needy families and gives his belated backing to Rishi Sunak shows he had come to believe there was no way back for him in her eyes.