You haven’t seen the last of Michael Gove

It is hard to believe that Michael Gove will never again sit on the front bench. For the past 12 years, he has been one of the most interesting figures in British public life. Those who have worked with him testify to his ability, his command of detail and his intellectual self-confidence. Now, Gove has endorsed Rishi Sunak – who looks destined to lose out on the top job – and declared his own frontbench career over. 

Because of the growing tendency to run cabinet government as a game of musical chairs, moving ministers around before they can stamp their personality on events, Gove has not been given the chance to make a major contribution in any of his recent posts.

But that was emphatically not true of his four years at Education. Gove, 54, was the most important Minister of Education since Rab Butler. The insistence on high standards, the encouragement of free schools, academy schools and parental choice: Gove believed that much of the educational establishment which he had inherited – he would refer to it as “the Blob” – was only interested in the dogmas of comprehensivism, at the expense of damaging the life-chances of millions of children from less well-off families. He was determined to put that right. This takes us to the man’s core. It exemplifies his strengths, yet also reveals a weakness.

Gove’s enthusiasm for education owes much to his own background. He was adopted. When he was nine, his mother told him about this. Gesturing at her lower stomach, she said: “You did not come from there.” She then pointed to her heart: “You came from here.” By all accounts, he was immensely fortunate in his parents, who ensured that he had an excellent education at Robert Gordon’s College, one of the merchant schools that flourish in Scotland’s great cities and which give lads and lasses o’ pairts first-rate teaching: independent-school quality, free of charge. All this endowed him with a burning conviction: that all children deserve the opportunities which he had enjoyed. 

From Robert Gordon’s, he progressed to the second-best University in the country. Yet although he honed his oratorical skills in the Oxford Union, he could never be accused of the flippancy which is sometimes associated with its debating style. Gove’s commitment to education was too fervent for that. There is no more passionate idealist in the House of Commons.

Once he was in government, that caused problems and exposed a weakness. He was too much of a conviction politician: too determined to press ahead rather than recruiting allies to secure his flanks. In that, he was abetted by his special advisor Dominic Cummings, whose political style was relentlessly abrasive: a bull who carried a china shop around with him. But not all teachers were Trotskyite saboteurs. That was not even true of the civil servants in the Department of Education. Equally, Gove’s combative approach alarmed many parents. The Tories ought to have been able to turn his achievements into an electoral asset: “If you want your kids to have a decent education, vote Tory.” That was harder than it should have been because of mistrust, inspired by Gove. 

So David Cameron moved him, encouraging his successor, Nicky Morgan, to implement Gove-ism with a human face. In no sense was this an abandonment of Gove’s agenda. It was a mere reculer pour mieux sauter. Gove’s achievement endures.

Then came Europe, which has had a baleful influence on many Tory political careers. Although Gove had always been a Euro-sceptic, David Cameron assumed that he would support the Remain side in the referendum and has never wholly forgiven him for failing to do so. 

It seems probable that, like Boris Johnson, Gove assumed that David Cameron would carry the day. In that case, he could safely indulge his Euro-scepticism, fire a shot against Europe’s bows, and hope that a victorious Cameron would take a tougher line with Brussels. If that was the calculation, it went awry. Instead, Gove made a crucial contribution to the Brexit campaign. Dominic Cummings, part of the team, was displaying his customary blend of brilliance and disruption. He came out with “Take Back Control”, a formidable piece of phrase-making. But he also made himself so difficult that various senior figures wanted to fire him. Gove would not let that happen. If Cummings had been bin-bagged out of the Brexit offices, Gove would have walked out. In that case, Johnson might have stayed with Remain, and Britain would still be in the EU. 

There followed the short-lived Gove/Johnson pact. That was a curious affair. There is one obvious question. Why did Gove briefly accept a subordinate role? If he had never formed an alliance with Boris, and had simply run on his own, he might well have won, and might still be Prime Minister.

We know that back then, Boris lacked the toughness to try to create an opportunity. We can also assume that if it had been Gove versus May in the membership part of the campaign, Gove’s platform performances should have carried him to victory. 

Instead he spent a few days becoming increasingly disillusioned with Bojo’s malarkey before declaring that this was not a man who could do the job. That self-evident truth led to his being reviled as a blend of Machiavelli and Iago: an ironic fate for an idealist.

Almost everyone is now assuming that a Truss victory is a done deal. If that does happen, there will be a great deal of uncertainty, but there is one point on which we can be clear. There will be no phone calls from the new PM imploring Gove to think again. 

Despite his insistence that Rishi Sunak is still in with a chance, Gove seems resigned to the backbenches. In that case, he will have plenty of opportunities to help his party to work out its future direction. If the Trussites have any sense, they will keep lines open to him. A combination of idealism, experience and intellectual energy; this man is not a time-expired minister. He is a considerable political asset in early mid-career.