Michael Gove and Boris Johnson: partners in power?

Boris Johnson’s speech at the Centre for Policy Studies, much misrepresented, is still grabbing headlines. Boris gave the Margaret Thatcher memorial lecture, so it’s no surprise it has been interpreted as a bid to succeed her. But another relationship is just as intriguing: was Boris also stealing Michael Gove’s clothes? The Mayor said much about the significance of the Conservatives’ past, but the Govian aspects of his speech offer a glimpse of what the party’s immediate future might look like, particularly when it comes to a future leadership contest.

Boris’ ‘cornflake packet’ argument about meritocracy is a classic piece of Govian thinking. Posing the question ‘what would Maggie do?’, Boris said ‘I hope she would find a way to use [selective schools] to help bright children everywhere to overcome their background’. This shouldn’t be a surprise coming from a Conservative: the left fetishizes working class culture, the right sees it as something for the bright to escape – as