Whatever has happened to Michael Gove, Cabinet Office minister, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and putative deputy PM. He seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. His last contribution in the House of Commons was 17 days ago and I don't remember seeing any TV appearances, quotes or stories in the newspapers recently from or about him. I think it was Oscar Wilde who said there's only one thing worse than being talked about and that's not being talked about, so he cannot be pleased with that.
I mention this because Johnson's popularity seems to be slipping and a few months ago some commentators thought Gove might be 'on manoeuvres' as they say and I just wonder if he sees an opportunity coming up?
Tom Newton Dunn, formerly at The Sun, now a columnist at The Evening Standard and now a radio broadcaster, has spoken to a 'senior' No 10 staffer who seems to have revealed the chaos at the heart of government is wholly down to Johnson:
Boris the "Stalinist libertarian" (as one senior No10 staffer describes him) is no longer taking advice, allies worry. One Cabinet minister says he's turning into "Kim Jong-un". It's time he re-learns how to trust. My @EveningStandard column today.https://t.co/OnrQTCcz7V
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) July 21, 2021
We all know the prime minister doesn't do detail and has no political convictions one way or the other and has always relied on others for advice. Now his trusted advisers Cummings and Eddie Lister have gone and he is apparently 'no longer taking advice.' I assume this means from Gove as well.
In his column, Newton Dunn quotes the staffer telling a frustrated Tory MP recently that Johnson is "a Stalinist libertarian.”
"He apparently 'demands total allegiance in all matters, the staffer explained, yet at the same time reserves the right to do whatever he wants whenever he wants; even if that means repeatedly changing his mind'."
Cummings has described Johnson as a supermarket trolley with a broken wheel, veering from side to side of the aisle bumping into everything. His wife Carrie is accused of interfering with government appointments, according to his latest outburst:
New blog: given Carrie was trying to do her own reshuffle & he was trying to fix illegal donations to pay for gold wallpaper while screwing up his job, OBVIOUSLY serious people in Downing St were discussing his possible self-destruction in 1/20 https://t.co/8O6WBOlNWE pic.twitter.com/mwVff9VWB3
— Dominic Cummings (@Dominic2306) July 24, 2021
It's behind a paywall but the image in the tweet explains:
"As soon as the election happened, his girlfriend started trying to replace key people with incompetent stooges so she could run things from the flat. She also had very strong opinions on the imminent reshuffle, which she heavily (and in my opinion wrongly) influenced. After the reshuffle was supposedly finished and the PM went upstairs, she insisted on reopening it and the PM started calling around frantically from the flat, appointing ministers and shuffling people who had already supposedly been finalised, causing chaos for poor officials downstairs who could hear her shouting at him through the phone."
"In this awful environment, he was ranting about how he was now 'the king' and doing mad things like trying to organise obviously illegal contributions to pay for the flat renovation."
This is all in the context of Cummings discussing with others the removal of Johnson within days of his election win. Cummings and Gove are big mates and I would not be surprised if the 'others' included Gove.
We know Johnson has harboured ambitions to be king from childhood and 2019's election victory seems to have gone to his head. He now behaves like a medieval monarch without the slightest care about how crazy he looks.
None of this would be conducive to good government at the best of times but we are now entering the worst of times, with the NI protocol row threatening to spiral out of control (no Gove here either), imminent food shortages, a wave of new coronavirus infections, public sector strikes over pay, the NHS backlog rising to levels not seen for a generation, 'illegal' migration across the Channel at record levels, the absence of any coherent 'levelling up' strategy which is at the centre of Johnson's philosophy such as it is and a host of other issues not being dealt with.
This is apart for several enquiries into ministerial misconduct (including by the PM himself) and a big public inquiry coming into his disastrous handling of the pandemic (let the bodies pile up in the street).
It's hard to see Johnson departing Downing Street in anything other than utter disgrace and I just wonder if that moment might not be closer than we dare to hope? Is this what Michael Gove is counting on?
