Pick of the week’s Gossip

Michael Gove knifed Boris Johnson against the advice of two of his closest aides, according to All Out War, a new book by Sunday Times political editor Tim Shipman. At 7am on 30 June, Gove met with his team to confirm his decision to stand for the Tory leadership. “This will be Ed Miliband 100 times,” warned Paul Stephenson, referring to the Miliband fratricide. “Theresa May will be PM if you do this,” added Henry de Zoete. Yet two hours later, Gove went ahead. According to a source, Johnson was “shellshocked” when he heard the news. “He looked utterly crushed. It was not the realisation it might be all over. It was the betrayal.” To compound his misery, Johnson then received a text from David Cameron, reading simply: “You should have stuck with me, mate.” Ed Balls is hanging on in Strictly Come Dancing – but the former Labour MP is finding one aspect of the show rather upsetting: the younger contestants don’t seem to want him in their gang. As he told the Radio 1 Breakfast Show last week, filming finishes at 11pm, at which point everyone heads to the bar. But then the “contestants my age go home, and the young celebrities go down to Camden or central London... They’ve not invited me. I don’t know what it is. There’s this awkward moment about midnight when people sort of slip out, and I sort of stand there and nobody really says goodbye because they all want to leave without people noticing. It’s really tragic.”