Boris betrayed: Gove’s “staggering act of treachery”

“He explained that he was running ‘not as a result of calculation’, but for the sake of the country”

They used to say that a week was a long time in politics; now, it’s an eternity, said Charlie Cooper in The Independent. First, we had the shock referendum result – followed by the Prime Minister resigning. As the stock market tumbled and the pound plummeted, only one thing seemed certain in a newly uncertain world: Boris Johnson would take over as leader of the Tory Party. The man who, as a child, declared that he would be “World King”, who had never disguised his thirst for the top job, was just a step away from becoming PM. But wait – not so fast. In the background, a “Get Boris” conspiracy was brewing at Westminster; and leading it was not one of his known enemies, but his comrade on the Brexit trail, and the man slated to mastermind his leadership campaign – Michael Gove.

That all was not well in “Borisland” emerged on Tuesday, said Matthew d’ancona in The Guardian, when a private email from Gove’s wife – the journalist Sarah Vine – was leaked to the press. In the email, Vine warned her husband, and his advisers, that they must get “SPECIFIC assurances” from Johnson before guaranteeing him Gove’s support. Even so, no one at that point expected Gove to throw his own hat into the ring. He had so often insisted that he had neither the inclination nor the temperament to lead his party that it was, as he admitted, virtually “engraved” on his business card. Yet two days after that email, Gove issued a press release in which he declared that Johnson was unfit to lead the party, and announced his own candidacy, said Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail. “The eternal courtier has decided to take a tilt at the crown.”

It was a staggering act of treachery, said Marina Hyde in The Guardian. Johnson didn’t even get any warning. (Gove claims he tried to phone him, but that he couldn’t get through.) Hours later, journalists who had gathered to hear Johnson launch his campaign instead heard him announcing his withdrawal. With the vote split, he knew he would struggle to get the support he needed, said the London Evening Standard. So it was that Michael Gove, who had already helped bring down one friend – the PM – claimed his second scalp. But what had motivated him? Johnson’s supporters are convinced Gove was a cuckoo in the nest, planted by George Osborne, with whom he’d remained in close contact. According to this theory, Gove persuaded Johnson to come out for Brexit, to capitalise on his voter appeal, but was always going to try to scupper his leadership ambitions. The shock Leave victory, and Cameron’s resignation, just meant he had to act faster, and more ruthlessly, than planned. Members of the Johnson camp are now kicking themselves for ever trusting a man who – at a dinner in 2013 – told Rupert Murdoch that Johnson would make a terrible prime minister, that he had “no gravitas” and was “incapable of focusing on serious issues”.

That’s one version of events, said The Times. Another is that Gove had come to admire Johnson, but since the referendum, had grown concerned that Johnson was resiling from the promises made during the Leave campaign (e.g. on immigration), and wasn’t a serious player. Johnson had failed to turn up to a key meeting of supportive MPS; and had failed to get a message to Andrea Leadsom that would have stopped her launching her own leadership bid. In a 33-minute speech on Friday – which coincided with the Battle of the Somme centenary commemorations – Gove explained that he was running “not as a result of calculation”, but for the sake of the country. Journalists could not help but note that his speech was long on detail for a man who’d only just thought of standing, said Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph. “Mr Gove smiled bashfully. ‘I’m notorious amongst my friends for having lots of ideas.’”

Well, that much is true, said Quentin Letts: Gove “fizzes” with ideas, and his speech was “gripping” in its “flinty insistence” that Brexit must be delivered to protect an underclass that had become “flotsam and jetsam in the powerful flows of global capital and free labour”. Gove is a man of principle, said Boris’s sister, Rachel Johnson, in The Mail on Sunday. An “ideological ninja” who has a picture of Lenin on his office wall, he has often said that he would put his beliefs before his friends. But surely he must realise that after this, the public won’t see him as a man of conviction but as a “political psychopath”. The Daily Mail – formerly presumed to be on Gove’s side – has now thrown its support behind Theresa May, said Andrew Grice in The Independent. Tory MPS aren’t sure if they can ever trust him again. Meanwhile, voters must be looking on aghast, as their country is torn apart, all for the sake of a Tory Game of Thrones. “In politics, there are some things you do not recover from.”