Gove made racist jokes and sex jibes, recordings reveal

MICHAEL GOVE made racist jokes, mocked a future minister for her sex life and called Prince Charles a “wet, drippy adulterer”, recordings from Cambridge Union reveal.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster spoke in debates about colonialism, sex and university at the Cambridge Union between 1987 and 1993.

Recordings obtained by The Independent show him making off-colour jokes, including referring to non-white people as “fuzzy wuzzies”. He called the Prince of Wales “a dull, wet, drippy adulterer whose romantic conversation is dominated by lavatorial detail”, to cries of “shame” from the audience.

One of the debates, in 1987, took place while Mr Gove was a student at Oxford University. The other two came in 1993, by which time he was a journalist.

In a debate entitled “This House prefers a woman on top”, Mr Gove made a series of jokes about the sex life of Lucy Frazer, then a student and now the minister for prisons.

He said Ms Frazer had done “remarkably well” to come from “the back streets of the slums of Leeds”. There is no suggestion Mr Gove and Ms Frazer were romantically involved at the time.

In another debate, he appeared to support a conspiracy theory that Sir Leon Brittan was a paedophile.

The Liberal Democrats called for Mr Gove to be sacked over the comments.

His spokesman declined to comment.