The last days of the Cameron administration: Part 1 The Gove Delusion

Faintly stunned Liberal Democrats report that Michael Gove is an absentee chief whip. He is simultaneously there at the coalition whips’ meetings but not there: a ghostly presence; a bored, miserable figure who has not forgiven or forgotten David Cameron’s decision to demote him from his beloved Education Department.

It’s dangerous to humiliate a man and then give him the power to humiliate you. Even in the fag end of a fixed-term parliament, which long ago ran out of useful business to conduct, a government needs a good whips office if it is to stay out of trouble.

The Cameron government does not have one and is always tripping over its own feet. Defectors run off to Ukip without warning. Labour outmanoeuvres Gove and embarrasses Theresa May by forcing a debate on the European arrest warrant – the last subject the Home Secretary wants discussed. No one believes the government can lose a routine debate on the regulation of pubs relationship to tied breweries.