Email shows depth of Gove betrayal, says Boris camp

BORIS Johnson’s camp accused Michael Gove of being ‘shifty, unprincipled and untrustworthy’ last night after extraordinary claims emerged about his alleged duplicity.

Less than two hours before the Justice Secretary announced his intention to stand as Tory leader, his team emailed Mr Johnson’s advisers to promise they would be turning up at his campaign launch. The former London mayor’s aides believe the message proves Mr Gove was deliberately keeping Mr Johnson in the dark for as long as possible to inflict maximum damage to his campaign.

Mr Gove was yesterday forced to deny allegations that he was a ‘political serial killer’ who betrayed both David Cameron and the ex-mayor.

The Justice Secretary was accused of ‘humiliating’ Mr Johnson and ‘destroy-

ing him publicly’ by abandoning him and running his own campaign for Tory leader.

In a bruising interview on the Andrew Marr Show yesterday, the host laid out damaging accusations against Mr Gove, describing his role in Mr Johnson’s political demise as a ‘brutal kind of political knife work’.

Mr Gove claimed he took the decision to stand very late last Wednesday evening, reflected on it overnight and then – after discussing it with colleagues – made his final resolution early on Thursday morning.

His campaign manager was ringing MPs around 7am asking them to come to a meeting at which Mr Gove would tell them he was running. But around the same time – 7.08am – one of Mr Gove’s special advisers sent an email to Mr Johnson’s camp saying the Justice Secretary’s supporters would be attending the ex-mayor’s launch later that day.

The email contained a list of MPs who would be turning up, including Nicky Morgan and Dominic Raab, who later signed off Mr Gove’s leadership bid.

Less than two hours later, at 9.02am, Mr Gove announced that he himself was going to stand for leader. A senior campaign source in Mr Johnson’s camp said: ‘It’s not the crime that proves some long-held plan, but the cover-up that proves it. Gove’s cover-up started before he even committed the crime.

‘Shifty, unprincipled, and untrustworthy, Gove was determined to leave Boris no room for manoeuvre and no room to react. It was a coup.’

It came as allies of Mr Johnson told the Sunday Telegraph that Mr Gove was a ‘Machiavellian psychopath’ who was always plotting to knife his friend. But Mr Gove said he had decided to launch his own campaign for the Tory leadership ‘reluctantly’ because the former mayor of London ‘lacked grit’.

He told Mr Marr his actions were not the result of personal ambition but a desire to serve his country by doing ‘what is right’.

And in a newspaper interview he claimed the episode proved he had the ‘steel’ which would mean he could stand up to Vladimir Putin on the world stage.

He told the Sunday Times: ‘I think one thing that people could say after this week is whatever else you say about Michael Gove, he is a man who is prepared to stand up for what he believes in and take the consequences…’

He added: ‘You’ve got to take a particular step, not to flinch, so I think Vladimir Putin, if we had the option to meet — which I’m sure we will if I am elected as prime minister — will know that whatever else I am, I am not a soft touch.’

For his part, Mr Johnson has told friends he regrets his decision to pull out of the leadership race and could have won if he made the final ballot, it was reported.