Michael Gove: A near-mainstay in Whitehall across14 years of Tory rule

Michael Gove has served in numerous different Cabinet-level jobs under four of the last five prime ministers during the past 14 years of Conservative rule.

His departure from the House of Commons will see the exit of someone who has been a near-mainstay in Whitehall while the Tories have been in power.

The 56-year-old has also been a leading player in the explosive drama and chaos at Westminster over the past decade-and-a-half.

He proved, through a series of stunning comebacks, he could never be written off as one of the Tories’ great survivalists and most influential politicians of modern times.

Adopted as a child, Mr Gove studied his way into Oxford, established himself first as a senior journalist, then a senior government minister – and later aspired to be the occupant of 10 Downing Street.

His political career will be remembered by some as Machiavellian after he engineered the downfall of his on-off friend Boris Johnson not once, but twice.

Even his critics, however, have to acknowledge he became one of the leading figures in Westminster as he bounced in and out of the Cabinet, holding multiple roles.

His intelligence, sharp wit, and staunch defence of free journalism have all helped him stand out from the crowd.

Mr Gove is currently Levelling Up Secretary and also Rishi Sunak‘s minister for intergovernmental relations.

In his myriad of past roles, he was previously Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Cabinet Office minister under Mr Johnson, and Environment Secretary under Theresa May.

Prior to that, Mr Gove served as Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor, Chief Whip, and Education Secretary under David Cameron.

Born in 1967, he was adopted by the Labour-voting Goves in Aberdeen aged four months.

Revealing he was adopted while he was still young, his mother Christine Gove told him: ‘You’re different from other children because we chose you. You didn’t grow under my heart, you grew in it.’

Mr Gove has later claimed the struggles his father Ernest’s fishing business suffered thanks to EU regulations motivated his politics.

By the time the voracious reader arrived to study English at Oxford in the 1980s, he was a Tory ‘young fogey’ in tweeds.

He found himself among ‘posher’ university contemporaries including Mr Johnson, who he helped get elected as Oxford Union president.

After working at The Times as a senior writer, Mr Gove became a Conservative MP in Surrey in 2005.

It was as part of the Tory ‘Notting Hill set’ – an informal group of young Conservative figures who corralled around Mr Cameron’s leadership – that Mr Gove first rose to prominence in the Noughties.

Mr Gove was a shadow minister in Mr Cameron’s top team until the Tories entered government at the 2010 general election after agreeing a coalition deal with the Liberal Democrats.

He then spent four years as Education Secretary before the first big setback of his political career when he was demoted to Chief Whip.

It came amid claims private Tory polling had shown Mr Gove to be a toxic liability among teachers, following his efforts to push through radical reforms.

Aided by his adviser Dominic Cummings, Mr Gove introduced moves to restore the importance of traditional teaching while fighting ‘the Blob’ of resistance from left-wing teachers and trendy education experts. 

His demotion also came shortly after a public spat with Mrs May – the then-Home Secretary – saw Mr Gove forced to apologise.

The two leading Cabinet ministers had clashed over an alleged ‘Trojan Horse’ plot by hardline Islamists in some Birmingham schools, with a bitter briefing war between the two sides erupting in the media.

After the Tories won a surprise majority at the 2015 general election, Mr Gove was promoted back to the top table of British politics after being handed the role of Justice Secretary by Mr Cameron.

Mr Gove advised Mr Cameron against holding a Brexit referendum. 

But Mr Cameron’s decision to push ahead with an in/out EU vote caused a deep schism in the Conservative Party – with Mr Gove and the then-premier placing themselves on opposite sides of the split.

Mr Cameron was said to have felt enormous betrayal at his old friend Mr Gove’s decision to turn against him and take a leading role in the Vote Leave campaign.

It was during the EU referendum campaign that Mr Gove forged an alliance with fellow Brexit champion Mr Johnson.

Mr Gove famously declared during the Leave versus Remain battle that ‘the people of this country have had enough of experts’, in response to the Establishment’s support for the EU.

The referendum campaign culminated in a remarkable press conference on the morning of 24 June 2016, when both Mr Gove and Mr Johnson seemed stunned that they had emerged on the winning side.

What followed was another bout in the Tory psychodrama as Mr Gove initially backed Mr Johnson to replace Mr Cameron as Conservative leader and PM.

But, in one of the most stunning events in Westminster in recent years, Mr Gove then stabbed Mr Johnson in the back and launched his own campaign for the leadership.

This prompted Mr Johnson to pull out of the race and, after Mr Gove failed to win the requisite support of Tory MPs, Mrs May went on to win the contest.

Mrs May snubbed Mr Gove for a government role when she first entered Downing Street as she sacked him as Justice Secretary.

She was reported to have told him to ‘go and learn about loyalty on the backbenches’. 

His spell without a ministerial role – the first time he had been without a government job since May 2010 – saw him return to his earlier career as a journalist and he interviewed US president-elect Donald Trump for The Times.

But, again, Mr Gove displayed a remarkable ability for political survival when he returned to Cabinet as Environment Secretary after Mrs May’s decision to go for a snap general election in June 2017 back-fired and she lost the Tories’ majority.

Mr Gove supported Mrs May’s Brexit deal through the dramatic battles in Parliament, when many of her MPs turned against her over her plans.

When she was eventually forced from office in the summer of 2019, Mr Gove mounted another bid for the Tory leadership.

But his campaign was sunk when it was revealed he had taken cocaine ‘on several occasions’ in the past.

Mr Johnson went on to succeed Mrs May as PM and he and Mr Gove appeared to enjoy a return to harmonious relations when he appointed his former foe as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

Mr Gove became a key player in Mr Johnson’s administration as he took charge of no-deal Brexit preparations, and then chaired meetings between the four nations of the UK during the Covid pandemic.

Yet there was to be another bitter falling out between the two men amid Mr Johnson’s downfall in the wake of the Partygate and Chris Pincher scandals.

After he urged Mr Johnson to resign, Mr Gove was fired as Levelling Up Secretary.

A No 10 source said at the time: ‘You can’t have a snake who is not with you on any of the big arguments who then gleefully tells the press the leader has to go.’ 

Mr Gove subsequently spent a second prolonged spell on the Tory backbenches after he supported Mr Sunak’s leadership campaign against Liz Truss during their bitter battle to succeed Mr Johnson.

Ms Truss refused to hand Mr Gove a Cabinet job when she entered No10, but after her premiership dramatically exploded after just 49 days, he returned to his former role as Levelling Up Secretary under Mr Sunak.

It is perhaps no surprise that Mr Cameron has written of Mr Gove: ‘One quality shone through, disloyalty. Disloyalty to me and, later, disloyalty to Boris.’

Even an unnamed Tory supporter of Mr Gove has said: ‘Call it Machiavellian if you want, but he has an urge to ensure things turn out in the way he thinks they should – he will meddle even if he or others get burnt.’

Mr Gove has previously found time at dinner tables to perform self-penned ‘gentlemen raps’ – with his ‘Bojo song’, praising Mr Johnson in rap style as ‘The million pound NHS funder… A golden wonder… Vote Leave made him top gunner’.