“What’s Michael Gove up to?” This perennial question is doing the rounds once more among Gove-watchers in SW1 after the Observer published details over the weekend of a “secret summit” on Brexit. The paper reports that the two-day summit in the Great Hall of Ditchley Park was a cosy cross-party affair, complete with an extraordinary guest list topped by the lead “Leave” patron himself.
Unfortunately for Gove, what happens at Ditchley apparently does not stay at Ditchley. And the Observer’s report on Monday elicited a series of stunned reactions from Brexiteers and remainers alike. All wondered what Gove, who has traded on a reputation for political savviness in consecutive governments, could have to gain from this conspicuously clandestine conference.
If the media briefings from Gove’s allies are anything to go by, then the levelling up secretary was left rather red-faced by the whole affair. Responding to rebukes from Brexit “purists” like Nigel Farage, John Redwood and Iain Duncan Smith, Gove allies took to the pages of The Sun to lambast “embittered remainers” for a hostile misreading of the event’s terms.
“Michael has no ‘bregrets’ and set out the massive opportunities we can seize now we are no longer chained to the EU”, a source close to Gove explained.
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But the levelling up secretary had good reason to be embarrassed. As Monday progressed, the Ditchley saga got more and more out of hand, with Downing Street forced into pointed denunciations and disavowals A No 10 spokesperson insisted to journalists that the prime minister had no knowledge of a cabinet minister’s attendance at the summit. Gove, the briefing’s subtext suggested, had simply gone rogue.
It is telling that this explanation has been so widely accepted. We are reassured: it’s just Gove being Gove — stuck, typically, on some inscrutable side-quest.
Indeed, this was the man who appointed anti-“blob” activist Dominic Cummings as an adviser while education secretary; who challenged his chum David Cameron by leading the Leave campaign; who, in 2016, stabbed Boris Johnson in the back to seek the Conservative crown for himself; who hinted consistently at a second leadership bid while serving under Theresa May; who amid the slew of resignations from Johnson’s cabinet last year, stood alone as a sackee for “for disloyalty”; who raised eyebrows in backing Kemi Badenoch for Conservative leader last summer; and who spent the 2022 party conference as a talismanic troublemaker, challenging Liz Truss on the core tenets of her tax-cutting regime.
We all have our idiosyncrasies, but Michael Gove may have more than most.
Under Sunak we have arguably seen Gove’s rogue streak manifest more meaningfully and over a shorter period of time. Before the stories of a secret Brexit summit, came a report in the Financial Times that the treasury had imposed a ban on Gove’s levelling up department from pursuing any new capital expenditure without its approval. Previously the department of levelling up, housing and communities was able to sign off spending on capital projects worth up to £30 million.
The trigger of the curb, led by chief secretary to the treasury and key Sunak ally John Glen, is thought to be a speech Gove gave in late January, in which the DLUHC secretary announced new funds to fund improvements to inadequate housing.
Despite levelling up minister Lee Rowley’s strained insistence to the MPs last week, this is no minor intervention. Indeed, the decision to rein in a secretary of state’s spending power is a serious move adopted only when there are real concerns about a department’s very functioning.
It was the latest signal of the treasury’s renewed strength under Sunak. Having undertaken a reshuffle which unravelled the treasury’s chief rival in the business energy and industrial strategy department, Sunak is clearly trying to stamp his mark on Whitehall.
Another curious bit of gossip from the recent reshuffle, again uncovered by the FT, was that Gove was initially “sounded out” to lead the new science, innovation and technology department. Michelle Donelan, the report suggested, was at best a second choice. But Gove is thought to have rejected the sideways move, opting to stay in his levelling up brief, a fact which is clearly causing Sunak some distress.
For his troubles, Gove finds himself relegated to tenth place on the government’s newly published list of ministers, behind the heads of the newly created departments in Donelan and Grants Shapps, who occupy ninth and eighth position respectively.
Michael the ol’ maverick
Recent stories curate an image of Gove as a secretary of state who doesn’t do what he’s told, who needs round-the-clock surveillance by the treasury and who, if unmonitored, may find himself at a secret Brexit summit with former arch-remainers.
But notwithstanding the administrative implications of Gove’s activism — the problem for Sunak is that when Gove makes noise, people take notice.
He is a veteran cabinet minister, who has survived more than one unceremonious sacking. And, unlike Liz Truss, who survived multiple ministries by camouflaging into the background or adopting the views of the then-PM, Gove has endured by relying on his political nous. He has made himself indispensable to consecutive prime ministers, even when personal relationships have been strained.
Largely rising above the sleaze and the scandals that stained Johnson’s government, Gove also showed bravery through the summer leadership contest by calling out Truss’ tax-cutting. According to reports, the former environment secretary had resigned himself to play out the rest of his political career in the wilderness. Or so it seemed.
Gove’s career was given a lifeline by the rapid collapse of Truss’ government. The trauma enacted by the mini-budget which preceded Sunak’s elevation gave Gove the opportunity for one final victory lap after a decade at the top of politics.
By reportedly rejecting a move to the new science department, therefore, Gove has signalled that he sees his legacy as intimately tied to levelling up. He may now be working to engrain practices in the department, keeping ideas sufficiently alive that a future secretary of state may prove unable to ditch them.
Gove is not a natural political foe for Sunak, both can be described as “Brexit pragmatists” and both opposed Truss’ economic plans. But the prime minister will understand that the maverick manager at DLUHC has never been an easy, or predictable minister to deal with. So even if Gove is a little long in the tooth politically, recent developments show the levelling up wiz is as rogue as ever.
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