The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 160. Michael Gove: Education, Brexit, and Trump (Part 2)

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

What is Michael Gove's lasting legacy on education in the UK? Would he have come to his position on Brexit if it weren't for Dominic Cummings? Is Nigel Farage's Reform a better chance for the UK than Labour? Rory and Alastair are joined by Michael Gove for a second episode answering all these questions and more. Get more from The Rest Is Politics with TRIP+. Enjoy bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access, live show ticket priority, our members’ newsletter, and private Discord community – plus exclusive mini-series like The Rise and Fall of Rupert Murdoch. Start your 7-day free trial today at therestispolitics.com For Leading listeners, there’s free access to the Wordsmith Academy - plus their report on the future of legal skills. Visit ⁠https://www.wordsmith.ai/politics⁠ To save your company time and money, open a Revolut Business account today via https://get.revolut.com/z4lF/leading, and add money to your account by 31st of December 2025 to get a £200 welcome bonus or equivalent in your local currency. Feature availability varies by plan. This offer’s available for New Business customers in the UK, US, Australia and Ireland. Fees and Terms & Conditions apply. For US customers, Revolut is not a bank. Banking services and card issuance are provided by Lead Bank, Member FDIC. Visa® and Mastercard® cards issued under license. Funds are FDIC insured up to $250,000 through Lead Bank, in the event Lead Bank fails. Fees may apply. See full terms in description. For Irish customers, Revolut Bank UAB is authorised and regulated by the Bank of Lithuania in the Republic of Lithuania and by the European Central Bank and is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland for conduct of business rules. For AU customers, consider PDS & TMD at revolut.com/en-AU. Revolut Payments Australia Pty Ltd (AFSL 517589). Social Producer: Celine Charles Video Editor: Charlie Johnson Producer: Alice Horrell Senior Producer: Nicole Maslen Head of Politics: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. Sign up to the Restis Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolities.com. That's the restispoletics.com. This episode is brought to you by Wordsmith. A.I. And increasingly, of course, in all the organizations we work in, we can get massively slowed up by the paperwork, the processes, the forms, the legal advice. And that's why, in business today, it's all of us, legal tips. teams, companies are facing a choice, lead the AI shift or risk being left behind. And companies like Trust Pilot, Deliveroo, SkyScanner are already leading the way,

with Wordsmith AI alongside them. It's like giving every lawyer an invisible paralegal, somebody who knows their history, drafts the first pass and frees up hours for complex work. Wordsmith handles the routine so that the lawyers can focus on the bigger issues. Crucially, this isn't at the moment something that's replacing lawyers. it's something that's taking out the more boring routine task so they can really use their expertise, their experience and their human judgment in the law. And it wasn't built in Silicon Valley.

It was built like so many great things in history in Scotland, now benefiting companies worldwide. Shifts already happening. Wordsmith is helping legal teams around the world with clarity and confidence. There's free access to the Wordsmith Academy, plus their report on the future of legal skills. visit wordsmith.a.ai slash politics. Welcome back to The Restless Politics Leading with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alastair Campbell. Now, Michael, I am determined to get you onto the stuff that I admire you immensely for, which is being...

And I don't. And I, he don't. Which is being a minister. So, for listeners, Michael was, without a doubt, I think, the most effective minister that I saw. And I want to begin with the tribute to him. So when I took over as the prisons minister, I tried to see my predecessors. They somewhat reluctantly turned up to a meeting in a lower ministerial corridor,

and didn't have much to say. Michael, on the other hand, tracked me down in the Pugian room, sat down with me for well over an hour, gave me introductions, notes, names, thoughts, listened very carefully to what I was trying to do. And indeed, when I turned up in the department, it was very clear that they felt they had an incredibly engaged, serious minister who actually wanted to do things.

And actually, oddly, given your background in journalism and given other tendencies in your character, which I was grumbling about a second ago, you were not in any way, I felt, doing this simply for headlines. You actually were genuinely interested in prisons, genuinely wanted to make them better places, had theories about how to do it,

got out and about, met people, were really interested in detail arguments. So tell us a little bit about your philosophy of being a minister, your relationship with the civil service, what surprised you when you first became a minister, what you learned through successive ministers, and what the public might miss about the nature of being a minister.

And then I'll hand over to Alistair, who might have more grumbly things to say. That's incredibly kind, Rory. And you're being modest yourself. You were a very successful minister. And the period that you had out of ministerial office was inevitably shorter because of the vicissitudes of politics. But you, and it's there in your book,

it's one of the reasons it's been a best seller. paint a picture of the potential for good that ministers can bring about, but also the frustrations of ministerial life. I think the key thing is you've got to recognize that there is only a limited amount of time that you have. It is always later than you think. The only certainty about ministerial life is that it will end probably at a moment that you do not choose. Therefore, you have got to get on with it. You have got to show agency. And the critical thing also is as a minister, you are there to correct things. Now, there are some roles in ministerial life where you are keeping things ticking over or you're managing relationships and you're not

really moving the dog tremendously, say, foreign secretary. But if you are in charge of a domestic ministry with responsibility for education, health, justice or whatever it might be, then it is your job to identify where the system is not working, who is losing out, and change it by analyzing the reasons why that's come about. And you can't simply rage at the system in the abstract. You've got to analyze what the incentives are within the system that lead otherwise good people not to do a good job. Now, there is an education campaigner by the name of Fiona Miller,

who I think is known to you, Michael. Brilliant writer. A brilliant writer and a brilliant campaigner. And I asked her in preparation for this, I said, could you just do me a short, note on Michael Gove's tenure at the Department of Education. 360 pages later. It's very, very good.

But I'll tell you what she says right at the start. The thing to remember about Michael Gove is that he was a masterful politician, brilliant at manipulating the media and driving policy through. But when you reflect on his main periods of manic activity, Brexit and education, the outcomes range from disastrous Brexit to underwhelming education. And she then goes on to explain why she develops those youth. But I think the big one on education, and this is something, you know, we've talked about before, and I feel strongly, that the gap between the educational opportunities and outcomes between those who come from the deprived backgrounds and those

you don't as not narrowed. Do you have a view that education is not about, as it were, delivering opportunity to the many, not the few? Or do you actually believe in excellence for the few? No, I very strongly believe it's about opportunity for every child. So the gap between children from wealthier and poorer backgrounds was narrowing before the pandemic. And I think you're absolutely right to choose that as the metric against which my policies should be judged, because I said it would be. I said that what we need to do is to raise the bar and close the gap. That's just political jargon or a soundbite. What we really meant was we need to raise the level of performance in all schools, but in particular deal with a problem of inequality, because when I came

to office, and this is not a criticism of Labour, it's just a fact. When I came to office, the The gap between rich and poor grew during the time that they were at school. So in other words, the state is spending money, teachers are giving of their best. And yet at the end of it, even though you've got that intervention, rich kids enjoy greater opportunities within the state system. And that's what we try to address. Yeah. But I got the sense that you weren't trying to address that because I would argue quite outmoded view of education. And a lot of the stuff, you were brilliant at driving a narrative, you were brilliant at putting labour on the back foot.

But I'm not convinced that what you were doing in policy terms was leading to a situation. Can I interrupt for a second? Just for the general lessons before we get too much the week said, can you give us a sort of account of what she, given you know, Alice's partner and Fiona and her basic view, what her critique would be and how you disagree with it and where the misunderstanding is if you try to step back from this conversation for a second. It's difficult to describe someone else's position when they've been a critic and to be entirely fair.

But I think that Feuna's view would be the comprehensive system of state education, particularly when you have democratically accountable local authorities running schools, is the best way of making sure you have schools run in the interests of the whole community. And that in particular, England, more than Scotland and Wales, has suffered in the past from a form of elitism, a desire to separate children into sheep and goats. To say that a smaller group, less than a majority of children, are gifted and deserve to have an academic education and go on to enjoy all the fruits of life. The majority of children are neglected. They're considered to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. Up to now, you're doing fine with

her. Yes. You're now into, not sure she's say this bit, but carry on. It's good. And those children have been long neglected. Comprehensive education is a way of ensuring that children from different social backgrounds mix, but more than that, it's a way of making sure that the school thinks about the education of every child. Now, a lot of of that I agree with. Which bits do you disagree with? I think, firstly, the performance of local authorities as managers of groups of schools was not what it should be, and there needed to be a greater degree of innovation and room

for head teachers to exercise professional leadership. The other thing is, and I think this goes to the heart of it, lots of people would argue that the curriculum changes that I led, argued for and implemented, were designed for a minority. And this is where my views. Remind us what they were. Making sure that there was a greater level of ambition and rigor, a requirement to know a wider range of facts and to be able demonstrate facility with them in a more accomplished way. So requiring in the study of mathematics and an understanding of times tables at primary and an understanding of trigonometry, calculus and algebra to a high level at secondary school and so on. Now, lots of people think, oh, well, that sounds like a grammar school education. He wants to take us back.

He's really only interested in his fellow young swats. My argument, and not just mine, it was the argument of, as it happens, the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, is this is the sort of education that belongs to every child. Why should you say that just because children come from a working class background, that they shouldn't have the opportunity to do Algebra or to read. Shakespeare or to learn French and German to a high level, not just so that they can say hello to a tourist at McDonald's, but so that they can read Flaubert, or they're familiar with Gertr, Schiller, Wagner and all the rest of it. That was very strongly my view. And I think the evidence shows that actually if you look at the sorts of schools that we celebrated and whose success became more widespread during the time that we were in power, working class children,

children from disadvantaged backgrounds did benefit from a more academic approach. No, but I don't think she would disagree with you. Great. Wait a minute. I don't disagree. On that. I learnt algebra and trigonometry and languages and all that stuff. And I think everybody should.

I think what she would say is that a lot of this, this goes back to what we discussed in part one about you being a journalist. No, not being confident, being a journalist. Is that you were, you could frame a debate, you could frame an argument, you could get your opponents running around. And I think she would agree that your critics on the labour side spent lots of time chasing after the stuff you were doing. Toby Young's ridiculous free school nonsense, your mass academization, all this stuff. Let's have soldiers as head teachers and you're all these things, right?

But ultimately the outcomes on which you should be judged didn't deliver the progress that you say it did. Well, either in terms of PISA or in terms of the closing of the gap in terms of outcomes for kids from deprived backgrounds. So you mentioned PISA, and for people who are listening, that's the progress in student assessment or achievement measures that the OECD, the Paris-based think tank used to compare different countries in their performance overtime education. And we went up because other countries went down. The raw figures didn't change. The reason why the raw figures didn't change that much is partly because of COVID. So everyone was hit by COVID, but we were more resilient. and we were, essentially, we were doing more,

in crude football terms, if Arsenal or Burnley, they may, their goal difference may not be that great at the end of the season, but if they're top of the league, if they've scored more points, they're the best team there is. And England, and this is galling for me,

obviously, is someone who was born and brought up outside it, outperforms Scotland and Wales. So kids in Scotland aren't thicker, kids in Wales are no more stupid. Scotland is very similar overall to England in socio-economic terms, but England did much better. And also in the Tim's assessment in mathematics and science, we did better. And the gap between rich and poor. No, Michael, maths and science on the raw test scores, you went down on both maths and science.

In the raw test, you went up by a factor of one in reading. We went way up the lead because... Because the others fell. The reason the others fell is that everyone was affected by COVID. When was COVID? From 2020 to 2022. Right. My point is you have not delivered the closing of the gap that you said you did.

And on these raw test figures, you failed. No. So the first thing is that we outperformed every other country or jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. We have the best readers in the Western world. We've got the best men. math scores in the Western world. So after a period when it's really difficult and when you would expect educational attainment to be hit across the Western world, we proved more resilient and our children are performing significantly better. That was the test we said ourselves,

and the gap at every level between rich and poor was narrowing until COVID. We've got so much to cover. But one thing I wanted to ask you about is housing. Yes. So you were the sector of state for housing, right? Latterly. For three years. Yeah. Right. A huge amount of time.

This has been one of the biggest issues in British politics. And it's what Angela Raina was all about. I guess it's probably the one thing we know about the Labour Party and their growth policies all about housing. Can you explain why on earth we seem to find it so difficult to build houses? My vague memory is that, you know, one of your colleagues and Tory MP is that from 2010 onwards we endlessly went to meetings where we were told the number one thing as we were going to build houses.

And David Cameron cared about nothing except building houses. and a succession of the brightest and the best were made housing minister and housing was our thing. And here we are 15 years later and still we're being told we don't have enough houses and we don't seem to be able to build any houses. What's going on? It's such a complex and such an important question. There is a phenomenon apparently across what you might call the Anglosphere English-speaking countries, a crisis of housing affordability in America, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and particularly in the UK. And people are asking questions about the extent to which this is due to,

impart our financial system and the financialization of housing as an asset. In the UK, there are certainly some things that are identifiable. So the first thing is a planning system that is needlessly complex. The second thing is a body of environmental regulation, much of which I have an enormous amount of sympathy for and would champion, but which has become more obsessed with process than outcome. The other thing is that we have a group of major companies, the volume house builders who control a huge amount of the housing market, the private sector housing market, and they deliberately dribble out the number of new homes that are built in order to keep prices high and profits high on their part. The other factor is that you have something which is called

NIMBYism. I think that's rather unfair, but we all know the phenomenon. People in nicer parts of the country where others want to live resist new development because when that new development occurs, they think, A, this development is ugly, but B, more importantly, there's pressure on the schools, the GP surgeries, and the roads in my attractive area. You had these very, very different roles in Cabinet. You were, in education, you were dealing with teachers and schools, then you were briefly chief web. Then you were dealing with this whole issue of prisons and justice. Then you were worrying about the environment and presumably dealing with farmers and environmental NGOs, the sector of state for DeFRA.

And then lastly, you were dealing with house builders and Nimbias and all something. Give us a sense the difference between these roles. How would you give us a pithy sort of three sentence, strength and weaknesses of each one of these sectors and the problems of being a minister in them? It is the case. Whoever is the minister of the secretary of state in any given department, there will be groups known as the community, the sector, the stakeholders, who will be the, the obvious sections of society with whom you deal, as you say, teachers, farmers, environmental NGOs, prison officers, house builders, housing associations. But I think it is critical to think what is the overall aim that you're seeking to achieve in this particular context? And rather

and thinking that the relationship with those bodies or groups is the main thing and keeping them happy is the main thing, what you should be thinking of is what is the national interest here, you know, that sounds rather pompous, but what is it that you're trying to do? If you can make these people your allies, if they can approve of what you're doing, that is fantastic. But if you sometimes have to run up against them, then be ready for that, but be ready for that by having an analysis of the problem and an explanation of it that means that they have to defend their position not on the basis of saying, hello, we're the teachers, you should love us, but actually, well, what's this guy got wrong? I mean, he's, you know, he may not be a teacher,

but he's clearly interested in what happens for our kids, and he's making a worthwhile argument. So at DEFRA, one of the things that I found is that we could make common cause with a lot of the environmental NGOs and pressure groups. Actually, the environmental NGOs were the only ones that captured Michael in his whole ministerial career. The teachers certainly never did. They did. I think that obviously they were unhappy that not everything that they wanted, we delivered.

But also, to take a case in point, there are some arguments in which we are both profoundly interest, but I don't know how many rest of politics listeners are, like what should happen in our uplands and the arguments that exist between those who favor rewilding and those who support health farmers. I can see both sides of that argument. And I suspect, Rory, you would probably think that I see it through a naive green lens. You're probably right. It is a green lens. Green conservative. I'd like to think so. I'm not sure. You've got to also understand why it is that particular groups hold the view that they do. So again, if you're going to change the way in which you support farmers, you say, look, they all common agriculture policy is rational. This

is a more rational way. You might think, oh, you know, this is smart and this is clever and all the rest of it. But to be fair to the farmers, that you know they have two points. One, have you dealt with the Rural Payments Agency, the bureaucracy responsible? If you change things, even though it might seem nice in London and good in policy terms, you're asking a group of bureaucrats in Cumbria to change the payment system, I, as sure as anything, will get the wrong check in the wrong post at the wrong time. And I survive, Mr. Minister, on 20,000 a year. So all very well, your fancy schemes, but if you screw it up, I lose that. So being able to recognize that, but not allowing that to be a blocker on change is important. Now, you mentioned in episode

one the role of special advisors. Yes. And I was quite a well-known special advisor in the Blair government. Supremely successful. Thank you, Michael. You had a very well-known special advisor by the name of Dominic Cummings. Yeah. And Dominic Cummings, I'd love to ask you why you were so close to him. You seem to me at times to be quite dependent on him. And also, you know, back to your time in education, you remember at Tory education on social media. I do.

And this was, while you were going around the place, big as you are now, charming and erudite and funny and clever and all that stuff, at Tory education was brutalising anybody who dared to suggest that you were any the other than the greatest education secretary who had ever lived. And this, of course, was Dominic Cummings doing the dark arts, but on your behalf. And I think that was one of the reasons in the end why David Cameron moved you from education. There were a combination of things. So the first thing is, I'm a great fan of Dom. I know he's a very Marmite figure.

The best special advisors have one of two things, and ideally both. One, they are properly honest in private and two, they're original. They provide something that other people don't. And the thing about Dom is that he is brutally honest to the point of scorchingly so. And he is original. Some people would say wacky. Some people would say, well, it's all very old to be original. But if your ideas are crazy, there's not much merit in that.

But I do think he's genuinely original and creative. On the whole question of why David Sacked stroked move me, yes. So he was obviously very irritated by some of Dom's activity. Secondly, after Dom left, he left before I was moved. He said some disoblaging things about David. However long someone spends in a particular role, unless they're a real master of diplomacy, they'll end up riling various groups that they engage with.

So even the most emolent justice secretary will end up riling the Prison Officers Association sooner or later. And the teachers, you know, were scunnered with me. They were largely, or partly scullered with you, because of all this stuff that he was doing. Was he doing it with your blessing and permission, or was he doing it because he was a licence unto himself? Here, I plead the Gordon Brown defence, which is...

I was talking to Rupert Burdock in the United States, what? Or even, you could argue, the Bill Clinton position on gaze the military. Don't ask, don't tell. So he had free license? There were certain things that might be brought to my attention where I say, oh, come on. So you lost control of Dominic? I don't think I ever had control of him.

So there are two other things. One is, you know, there's this thing in politics, and it sounds terrible, but maybe it is. That sometimes the people who work for a minister, not just special advisors, but civil servants, will think we've got to protect the principle. There are certain things that require to be done in the rough and tough world of politics that we will do on behalf of our master or mistress. It will happen at a non-able distance. But I just wanted to come back on another thing, which was something that Rory mentioned earlier,

I think one of the other reasons that David Cameron moved me, is that the taste that Rory alluded to earlier for, you know, argument and discussion and so on, had got too much. And David, while he valued my opinion on a number of issues, just thought I was getting too mouthy in too many areas. And it was important for me to do a job, particularly in the run-up to the election, would absorb all of my time and energy. So that I wasn't suddenly in the middle of a cabinet discussion about the Arab Spring, offering a fascinating and original perspective on it. which William Hague might think was perhaps a diversion of time and energy. I already remember this. It's a very strange phenomenon of you.

And what were you doing 2015 to 16? So I was Justice Secretary, 2015 to 16. So I remember that one. It's an extraordinary thing on ministerial write-arounds. Oh, yes. So I was then the Environment Minister. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would be doing something on, you know, for example,

trying to ban plastic bags and supermarkets in charge. And suddenly you'd be weighing in on the ministerial right-rounds. And I'd have to confront you. in ministerial corridors saying, what the actual fuck? You've just come from education, Chief Whip, you're now doing justice, and you're trying to interfere my views on plastic bags. What do you know about it? Is it something you did a loss of getting involved in ministerial writer-ins and other people's departments?

Totally. He had been a lead writer on the Times. He thing is, people sometimes... Incidentally, you were wrong on plastic bags. I may well. People sometimes say now to, you know, folk like me who are associated with 14 failed years. of Tory rule. Why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that? I mean, I was actually in the cap of, but I wasn't responsible for migration policy. Right. No, you might consider the

Boris wave to have been a great thing, a terrible thing, you know, whatever. I don't think many people think the Boris wave was a great thing. I wasn't responsible for migration policy. Right. Right. But my view was, if you're in a collective, if you're in the team, and you have a chance to contribute, you should. And so therefore, if I felt, and I was actually, even though it made it have seemed like it, I was exercising a degree of self-restraint. You would have been complimenting on everybody else's at departments all the time. Every night in a ministerial red box, you get, as Rory knows and Alastair knows, you get letters from other government departments saying, we're going to announce this policy on plastic bags

or whatever. We're seeking permission. And most secretaries of state just tick and though on. I took the trouble to read them and then if I disagreed I would wait and go for a walk and whatever and then if I really disagreed at the end of it I would say no I object

and I thought I'm not here as a robot I'm here to say I think this might be a political mistake and of course it's bloody irritating for someone else to have to justify and defend themselves

but if one thinks about it ideally that is cabinet government that you have cabinet ministers who are prepared to say, look, it's not really, you know, my strong point, but have we thought about it? And yes, it's irritating, but I think you get better government if you have that degree of challenge

rather than everyone meekly acquiescing in allowing a single minister to pursue his or her hypothesis. Was Cameron wrong to get fell out with you? No, because accumulation of stuff by the end of 2014 was such that it was probably wise to move me out of the way because he had to be focused on the general election. Okay, Michael, Roy, quick breaking them back for more.

Hey, this is Michael and Hannah from Gollhangers, The Rest is Science. This episode is brought to you by Cancer Research UK. We often think of beating cancer as treatment, but imagine stopping it before it begins. After years of work, cancer research UK scientists are launching a clinical trial of lung vax, the first vaccine designed to prevent lung cancer. It builds on TracerX, the world's largest cancer evolution study, which tracked lung cancer cells over many years to uncover the disease's earliest warning signs.

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their research breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit cancerresearchuk.org forward slash the rest is science. Hi, everybody. It's Dominic Zabric here from The Rest is History. Now, some of you may have heard me on your show, the rest is politics when Rory was away and I was filling in and enjoying Alistair Campbell's tremendous banter. And I'm back to tell you about our new series on The Restis History, which is all about Britain in the 1970s, a period with a lot of uncanny resemblances to our own. So right now we're living through a moment when oil shocks generated by war in the Middle East

are rippling through the world economy, when Britain feels like it's sunk in a bit of a malaise. people are arguing about Europe, the government has got a few issues with the trade unions, and we have a kind of, I suppose you'd say governing elite, a kind of political class that is really struggling to come to terms with all of these issues. And people are asking if Britain is governable at all. So there are a lot of parallels between that Britain that I'm describing, which is our Britain and the Britain of the mid-1970s. So in this series that's coming out on the rest is history, we're looking at these and other issues. We'll be talking about the rise of Margaret Thatcher, obviously a colossal figure in our political life even now, whether you

love her or loathe her. We'll be talking about the very first Brexit referendum of 1975, a subject that I'm sure Rory and Alastair will have strong opinions about. We'll be talking about the fall of the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, and we'll be talking about one of the grimmest moments in Britain's economic history, the moment in 1976 when we had to go cap in hand, as people said at the time, to the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, for a then record bailout. Now, if that sounds good to you, how could it not sound good to you? Of course it sounds good to you. We have a clip for you to listen to at the end of this episode.

And if you want to hear more, just search for The Rest is History, wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Revoluted Business, the all-in-one account, to manage your finances. Now, politics has its share of bad deals. Trade summits, late-night negotiations, often somebody walks away with the short straw. And we've seen enough botched negotiations in Westminster to know what happens when numbers don't add up. Business is no different. Nothing empties your pockets faster than hidden exchange rates. Revoluted business changes that. Over 25 currencies exchanged at the same interbank rates that banks use during market hours within plan allowance. With automatic orders and price alerts,

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that there's a problem here? Yes. Of slight intellectual self-confidence and an absence of understanding that there are areas you know less about than others and that maybe... But that's the same with any minister who gets appointed to any job. Well, no, but they don't generally actually. Michael's the only one who really enjoyed getting into other people's departments rather than thinking, I don't actually know much about that. And I think there's an interesting, you are almost a sort of perfect, strange here as Scott, the sort of English amateur who thinks that on the basis

of the brilliant Oxford English degree, you can jump in without spending the hard yards and being deeply immersed in the subject. There are two things. The first is overall, and I'm sure Alist will laugh, there's generally a lack of expertise and policy formulation. That is absolutely correct. But it is not the job of a Secretary of State to be an absolute expert, either in their area or in other areas, it is their job to exercise political judgment. And that means having ideally an appetite for knowing more and more about their area. but being able to ask tough questions and to have the interests of the citizen and the country in mind.

So, you know, I don't think there will be whether they were successful or unsuccessful chances of the exchequer, chances of the exchequer who will have known as much as the 364 economists who wrote to Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s saying that her policy was wrong. Or the ones who wrote to the public and the media and you and, you and. Boris Johnson and everybody else and said that Brexit is going to be a disaster. No, but one of the things, and I know that my Tory friends hate me for this, I'm a big fan of Tony Blair and you might think, Alster, that it's for all the wrong reasons. As am I.

You might think in my case it's for all the wrong reasons. It's because you're essentially, basically, a sort of right-wing Blair-eyed, aren't you? You're instinctively not really a Tory. In fact, when you say you agree with Rupert Murdoch, there was a sort of slight delight in all these wet grandees and all this stuff, you agree with them on that too, don't you? You're not really a Tory. Well, the two things that say, I do believe that I am a proper Tory, but the thing that I would say, the reason I invoked to Tony Blair is,

I think he was now at standing prime minister, but he, when it came to home affairs and crime, was operating on the basis of, yes, being a lawyer, but an employment lawyer, having a broad idea of how the criminal justice system work, but not a detailed one. But he had very good instincts on issues like antisocial behavior. he went to the trouble of talking to the police on the front line. So he wasn't an expert.

He wasn't a Helena Kennedy or master of the roles, but he was very good in that area. So I think that you can be a very good secretary-state or politician without having the deep expertise that some have. But you need to have those people around you. Then on the question, I'm a Tory. Absolutely. Before you get on to when you're on Tory, let's the Tory thing.

Listen, Lori, stop pushing me on Brexit, but anyway. The Tory is so interesting. But it's a good transition to Brexit. Good transition to Brexit. Because I think in an odd way, there's something here that I'd want you to play devil's advocate with yourself. Because I think it's your Achilles heel. What made you actually a really good minister is that you did really master your brief. You were incredibly patient and thoughtful about gathering information.

But it was always political. Maybe you were never as much an expert as you would have liked. But you really knew that stuff. Every time I spoke to you about your own departments, you have a quick mind, a retentive memory, you got into the detail, you briefed yourself well, you read profoundly. But there's another part of you that cannot quite resist, whether it's on Israel, whether it's on plastic bags, or whether it's actually on Brexit, suddenly thinking, and I'm going to have equally firm views on that forgetting that actually your real strengths and where you do best is when you know stuff. very possibly but I think it is part of the reason we have a cabinet is that secretaries of state and ministers should not be in their own silos there are some things that should legitimately be discussed

do disagree with any of that I still think there's a question in all of us of knowing where our strength and weaknesses lie and what we know more about and what we know less about which brings us to Brexit over the year would would you have got to the position that you got to on Brexit without comings? Yes. When did you decide that you were not just a lever, but somebody who was going to become a big part of that campaign? And do you to this day think it was the right thing to do?

I do think it was that Brexit was the right decision. And I was a, I think Roryno is skeptical about having a referendum. I didn't think it was necessarily a very good idea. and some of that was selfish because I didn't necessarily want to be in a position where I knew were very probably... And did you try and persuade Cameron and... Because Osborne was trying to persuade him as well? I did. I let him know what I thought about it. Obviously, George was much closer to David and a much more trusted advisor and much more aligned with him in so many other areas.

But it was certainly the case that I said that I thought it would be a mistake. And David thought that I would bury my feelings about it. And he famously, I think Rory's remarked on this. So, you know, there are two types of people in politics, team players and wankers. And so his natural view was if you weren't on the team, then, you know, you were on the side of the onerunists. And I remember with my ex-wife and my kids, staying with my mum, in the February half term, just as Cameron's negotiation with the EU was reaching its culmination. And being, I mean, nobody cares about my feelings, but I was in agonies about what to do because I knew that it would be difficult either way.

But there were a variety of people I talked to about it. And in a nutshell, the basic view was, you've got to do what you think is right because you're, curse yourself if at that point you don't stand up for what you believe. But you've done things, everybody in Cabinet has done things that they don't 100% go. Might you've found yourself able to go with Cameron and Osborne? Or did you feel it very viscerally that you believed in leaving the European Union and therefore there's no way you could. And why didn't, why didn't they know that?

Well, I think that I wasn't perhaps as vehement enough, early enough, about my concerns with them. though they did know, you know, it is the case that... You knew your views, but they didn't know... That I would take that view. And it's all because as we've just discovered with plastic bags in Israel, it's not as if you're shy with your views, right? I mean, you're very, very clear of the views.

So isn't it... Isn't it a bit odd that with Brexit, given that you have the strongest views of any human being and are not shy to share them, that they were not aware that you were an ardent Brexiteer. Oh, no, no, no. They definitely knew that. And there is a link, funnily enough, to write, Rans. in that so often did I object to things

that were in the Ministry of Books from other government departments that were actually ministers faithfully asking for permission to pass EU law and to British law that I was called in by the Cabinet Secretary to be told off and I was told you can't do this because this is EU law

and by definition it automatically becomes British law and I said well why is it in my box why are you treating us like idiots inviting us to agree to something that's already been agreed. So, you know, that, that, that, that, that, that, it's a minor radicalising factor. And I did make it clear at certain points. But I think that both David and George thought that Michael come down. And there are other folk who are quite Eurosceptic who, in order to stick with

the team, will suppress their doubts and so on. So I think it was perfectly legitimate for them to think he'll swallow it. And one reason they really thought is that you were not passionately in favor of a referendum. I mean, if you really, really wanted to leave the European Union, you would have been passionately in favor of referendum. And you weren't? No. So why weren't you passionately in favor referendum if you really wanted to leave the European Union? How could you have got there without a referendum?

Yeah. In that I didn't want, you know, I felt it would be a distraction from what it was that we were really all working together to achieve. And I also felt that a referendum was not a substitute for a proper policy. and I think that the, as it happens, and I don't mean to criticise David unduly, I think that the actual negotiating exercise that he undertook was misconceived and it wouldn't have found Britain in the right resting place with Europe at the end. But to fast forward, both you and I already found ourselves defending a settlement with Europe that neither of us thought was perfect, but both of us thought was better than the alternatives because both of us were probably the last two people standing. who still think that Theresa May's deal is a good deal. So there are moments when in politics you think you can and should compromise. And then at other moments, and a referendum is a binary one where you've got to decide.

So it's given to folk, if they're not MPs or not in the cabinet, they can sort of say, I'm not sure. But you had to decide. And at that point, I thought, you know, it's one of those gun to the head moments. It's one of those, as interviewers do on programmes. Yes or no answer, Alistair. Okay. Right. And before we get forward to Theresa May's deal and all that,

so was David wrong to be as angry and upset with you as he was sufficient, even with the passage of time to writing of his memoirs to call you mendacious? No, I think I completely understand. So I don't think it was, I don't think I was mendacious. But I can completely understand why he felt. angry and upset. I mean, he probably knew Johnson would do that, didn't he? I think he knew that there was always a risk.

Yeah, definitely. So I've tried, I've tried to often, I haven't always succeeded, think what it must be like for someone else on the other side of a political argument. That doesn't mean necessarily that I pulled by punches, but it means I can appreciate why they hold their position. and I don't make any criticism of David Cameron's handling of this on a personal basis. I think that he behaved throughout towards people as well as any politician could ever. Was the campaign mendacious?

Both campaigns were. Speak for the campaign that you were part of. Well, both campaigns had to simplify in order to get their message across. So both campaigns, you know, the... Remain campaign and the prospect of this emergency or crisis budget immediately afterwards was confected. And I think on the leave side, one of the correct challenges is we didn't spell out, I think, sufficiently clearly all the trade-offs involved. And Michael, one thing that I felt looking back on it is that maybe not you, but certainly people like John Redwood and Ocashie Dominic Cummings and and certainly Boris and others, were very optimistic in 2016 about a sort of globalised world.

And their sort of story was where Europe is struggling financially and look at, you know, China's going gangbusters. And maybe if we just open up and trade with the rest of the world. And that world's changed. Yes. You know, protectionism, tariffs. Yeah. We'd now be very, very reluctant to be profoundly reliant on free trade with Russia, China, this and the other. and the arguments in terms of trade and national security for being close to Europe feel stronger than they did in those days.

Do you acknowledge that, that the world has changed in 10 years? The world has definitely changed, but I think it actually makes sovereign control more relevant and more important. And my own view I've written about this is that trade formed a very small part of the campaign, It was not a motivating factor for most voters and not for me. But then afterwards, it loomed much larger in people's minds. And during the period of uncertainty about what benefits Brexit might bring, people pointed to trade deals and our friend Liz Truss was racking them up. That was not the aim and not the metric by which it should be judged. They were rollovers.

Well, precisely. So in some cases they were enhanced. And in some cases, actually with Australia and New Zealand, why they were quite extensive trade deals, I'm not sure they necessarily worked in the interests of British agriculture. But my point is that I'm not, this is one of the reasons I'm probably a Tory, not a liberal. I am not an ideological free trader. I'm not an unapologetic advocate of globalisation. I think that the most important thing is to make sure that you have accountable political leadership within a shared political community. that can be nimble certainly in response to global challenges, but ultimately, that's the most important thing.

And sorry, Alison, I keep interrupting and I promise to be quiet, but I'm just, you've got me going on sovereignty. Strategic autonomy and sovereignty, particularly at the moment for Britain, we are dealing with Trump, who is weaponising all vulnerabilities. We haven't got full strategic autonomy and defence, security, and AI is terrifying because all these big models are being built in the US. And if they turn out to be the core of all our economic life or our security or our public services, we're dependent on this guy. So, you know, my instinct is Britain should be leaning into Europe. We should be working with Europe to develop at least some resilience, at least hedge ourselves, have some strategic autonomy from the US. But that isn't the position in which we've been driven to. We're incredibly dependent.

I don't feel we're sovereign. Well, we have choices, and some of those choices that we've made, for example, on AI have allowed us outside the European Union to take a position on leadership on AI safety and on AI regulation, which actually helps British business. But more broadly, which Europe? My challenge to you, Rory, is that the Europe that you would like to see is very different from the Europe that we have. and that actually things like Mario Draghi's report remind us that Europe is an innovation sinkhole and that the political leadership that the EU should be providing on a variety of issues

isn't there. Partly because we've left. Well, that is an arguable point. We weaken Europe's political leadership. Arguably. Am I right, though, when you talk about you, think it was still the right decision. Yes.

Is that because ultimately for you, it was really just about sovereignty? That is at the heart of it. And if you have to pay a little bit of a price for that in some other areas, which we could list for hours, that that's kind of fine. I would, yes. It's the only intellectually defensible position. But where I don't think it takes you is to say that it's been of economic, social, cultural, political benefit to the United Kingdom.

I think it can be of economic. But it hasn't been. I think it can be of economic benefit. I certainly don't think it's been, we've had to bear the economic cost that many people say, but that's a different argument. I think it can be of economic benefit. And I think it has been of political benefit. Where do you want the relationship of Europe to go now?

So my feeling about the current Labour government is that they know it's been a bit of a dog's dinner. They got themselves into place where they don't want to sort of revisit the fundamental debate. So they are actually doing quite a lot of things incrementally, which are. trying to undo some of the damage. Where do you want our relationship with Europe to be? And how do you set it against what Rory is identified as this very new United States of America leadership? Well, I think we should have, to coin a phrase, and it's a cliche, a special relationship with Europe. I think I can understand why the Labour government wants to move towards what's called dynamic alignment

on certain regulations in order to make certain small businesses, particularly in the food and drink sector. Do you disagree with that? I do. Though I don't think it's, I personally wouldn't do it because I think that there is a, the future risks outweigh the current benefits. But I don't think it's crazoidal. I just disagree with it. But more broadly, we don't know, you know, in three years' time,

we could have President Gretchen Whitmer. We could have a Democrat in the White House. We don't know that the trajectory that Trump has set and that Vance would want to take America in. will necessarily be the one that exists in the future. But I think that there are both personal and institutional relationships that an independent Britain should have much as, and I know that it's an overdone comparison, but Australia or Canada or New Zealand.

You've just sort of gone to the sort of post-Trump period following what might happen in the next election, none of which we don't know, but you're right, it's got a very unpredictable. What do you think is going to happen in the next election in the UK? I really don't know because notwithstanding, Ronnie's very well-made point about the confidence with which I express my opinions even though I'm ignorant.

The problem is that are just more plates spinning. So, you know, you're quite good at sort of predicting things. What's your gut feel about where our politics is? I think it's very messy. And where might it be in three years time? Do you think Farage could be prime minister? He could be. Yes.

How do you feel about that? Well, I'd rather that it was Cammy Bade Noch. Would you rather Keir Starmer than Nigel Farage? I'd rather Nigel Farage than Keir Starma. Would you? Yes. Because? I don't wish Keir Stama any ill, but I think he's a terrible prime minister.

There are individual Labour ministers whom I admire. People who read the spectator will know that. It only embarrasses them, I'm sure. there are people like Shabana Mahmood and West Streeting. And as it happens, Douglas Alexander, who I think are really good. But I just think that I feel sorry now for Kirstama. Sympathy is never a good thing in politics. No.

What, okay, what would you do if you were the Labour Party to prevent Nigel Farage becoming Prime Minister? I would demonstrate and articulate a programme of reform, oriented towards working people who've been overlooked and undervalued for too long. Which is what they say they're doing. Yes. But just a couple of cases in point. There's a photo from, I think, before Christmas,

of Mr. Fink, one of the leading figures from a major private equity firm in Downing Street being fated by Kier Stama and Rachel Reeves. If I'd had him in Downing Street, I would have said to him, you're the representative of private equity. Private equity has been responsible for ripping off this country. Look at what happened to Thameswater.

with Macquarie. You and your people are the unacceptable face of capitalism. We welcome private investment into this country, but the way in which you deliberately drive down investment, drive up the profits that you make in order to make this company valued in a particular way, and then sell it and use carried interest to make yourselves rich. That's offensive. Get out of here. And at the same time, I would also say, if the ECHR or any international Convention prevents me deciding who's in and who's out of this country as Prime Minister, I am leaving it. Neither the wealthy who are exploiting British workers nor the crooks who are exploiting our borders will actually get in the way of me standing up for working people. Would you say

that to the Macquarie people? Yes. Have you said that to the Macquarie people? Yes. So you're saying that it's not just what you think Labour should say is what you also believe. Yes. And so So you're not really a Tory. No, I am because I precisely am, because it's your neoliberal that are uncritical worshippers of business. It's your Tories who believe in responsible capitalism. And, you know, if you go back to the 19th century, it was the Cobdens and the Brites and the Gladstons

that were all on the side of the factory owners. And it was the shaft sprees and the Israelis and the soulspries that wanted to make sure that those who worked in the factories had a fair wage, limited hours and decent homes. Do you think Farage believes in responsible capitalism? I don't know. But you'd rather have him as Prime Minister in Kirstearnel without knowing that? Well, first of all, I think that there are some areas where I do agree with Farage. And secondly, I also think that he is absolutely not a racist.

and one of the charges that's flung at him is that he either out of prejudice or out of cynicism plays to the politics of race and identity. I don't think that. I do worry, however, that there is so little behind him that in reform, in that broad movement, it's just a ragtag array of pirates. and what this country needs is not pirates in charge. It needs a proper navy, as it were, to adopt the metaphor, where everyone is sailing together in the national interest and proud to be under one flag. Michael, so much, as usual, you've opened up so many areas.

I was very tempted to point out that the notion that the way to really get British growth going and get investment into the United Kingdom and reassure the markets is for Keir Stammer to just throw Larry Fink out on the streets while screaming at him. And I also suggest that had you won that leadership contest that we were in together,

you would not have thrown Larry Fink on the street. I refer you to the speech that I gave to Water UK when I was environment sector. We don't quite have enough time for that. But let me finish then for the final thing. Let's finish with which department do you think you were best in and which one do you think you were worst in?

And what does that tell us about your personality, strengths and weaknesses and skills as a minister? I think, funnily enough, the one where I achieved the most per day in office was environment. And I think the one where I achieved the least was levelling up. And tell us why. I think the problem with leveling up is I started under one Prime Minister Boris,

then there was an interregnum, then I'm under Rishi, there was both discontinued. but also when I returned, because there'd been a leadership election in which both the candidates had made promises about, you know, restricting a house building in Tory areas and so on, it became progressively more difficult. And also the original impetus for leveling up had come from Boris. And when we returned, while Rishi was, you know, very, very interested in the policy detail,

he wasn't as convinced as Boris had been about, you know, the necessity of some of those big changes and devolution and so on. So, you know, we were running out of gas in a number of ways. In environment, the reason I mentioned is probably because it doesn't get often mentioned because lots of other Tories wouldn't like to think that we did things that were very green and lots of greens would hate to think that things had moved in a positive environmental direction under a Tory. my last round of questions Michael

trying to bring some of this stuff together so you have had several ministerial positions and you do have this reputation that Rory I alluded to at the start of part one that you were seen as one of the kind of deliverers inside a conservative government

but you do also have this reputation for lack of trustworthiness so both Cameron feels that you knifed him at one point. Johnson feels you knifed him at another point. And then Theresa May decided not to be dived and sort of told you to go off and spend time and learn about the Conservative Party. And then you've come back now. You're still a player, but you're now back in journalism.

Yeah. Are you trustworthy? I believe so, but I think I'm an awkward and difficult bugger. And Rory's brought that out and you've brought that at Alistair. And I think that I mentioned, you know, the Theresa thing. I was and Rory were, you know, our friends were similarly perplexed about our willingness to support Teresa's deal. A lot of Rory's friends thought this is ridiculous, you know, this is a messy compromise that gives too much the Brexit years. a lot of my friends thought the mirror opposite.

But for different reasons, and I thought, look, Theresa brought me back from the wilderness. She's given me a job. I enjoy doing where I think I'm making a difference. I owe her loyalty. Similarly, you know, Boris brought me back, and I thought he's given me this responsibility, and I formed a view of him in the past, but he has given me this chance. I'll stick with him. I think the other thing is that when I disagree often with people's positions,

I can be quite pungent and disagreement, but often because I will have appeared conflict diverse beforehand, but even though I enjoy taking positions, I don't always seek them. It may seem odd, don't always seek them out. People are slightly surprised, but they would think, well, he seemed so calm and reasonable now. And, you know, he was Bruce Bano a minute ago,

and now he's the Hulk. What's going on here? And so I think that is a personality quirk, which I think makes people... How does that work, actually? It is a very interesting line. into your personality. How does that work? I don't know. I think I should probably be in the psychiatrist's chair. Have you been in a psychiatrist's chair? I have talked to

psychiatrists in the past, yes. And one of the big things that they dig into? Well, I think it's... Your childhood? Yes. Parenthage. Yes. But I think, I don't know what a definitive explanation is, but I think it is observably true that you would not automatically guess from a lot of the time that there are certain things about which I feel passionately but I would hope and again it's not for me to speak for them

that I would hope that most of my my friends who really know me would say yes he's a bit odd and quirky and so on but once you get to know him you can broadly predict where he's going to fall on most things do you mind if I ask you why you did see a psychiatrist

Why you made that decision? I probably better not say at this stage, but we can maybe pick it up later on. Okay. And my final, final, final question, honestly, is to tell me about Paul Marshall. Yes. We don't know that much about him,

but he's now your boss. He is my boss. He is a UN's a spectator and GB News. What's his goal in life? I know this sounds terrible, but to do good. Oh, a right-wing media bogle. What did you do good? Well, he wasn't always right-wing.

No, no way he was, he was a Lib Dem. He was a Lib Dem. No, the thing is that he's one of the most generous philanthropists in the UK. He certainly has, you know, firm political views. Some people weren't like the political views even as they admire the generosity. I don't think you can understand Paul without reflecting on his faith. And his faith guides him to believe that if you have talents, both in the the literal sense of abilities, but also in the biblical sense of wealth, you should use it for good.

And he believes that you should help children with their education. He was involved in helping development work in the third world. But he also believes that some of the people who've been in power in this country have become estranged from, you know, what he considers to be the, you know, the principles that made this country successful in the past. and above all Including Christianity Not so much that More democratic principles But more than that

What he really likes And I suppose there are certain parallels here with me Is that he really likes The clash of ideas So his first intervention in the media Unheard was specifically designed To give greater houseroom and space To what he considered to be

The contrary opinion That was intellectually coherently coherent but not necessarily always respectable. And what he believes he's providing with GB News is in broadcast terms, a compliment to what he believes, and I agree with him, is the broadly sort of liberalish, leftish tinge that you have with Channel 4 News, Sky now, oddly, and the BBC.

And I'm not a BBC basher, but I think it's just better to acknowledge that the BBC overall while it's brilliant, it does trend ever so slightly to the left. GB News emphatically does not. And so Paul would see that as a corrective to a particular current. Would he see Fox News in the American context as a force for good? I've never asked him direct. And I think he would probably say that the context for American media is very different.

Is Trump a force for good? I think he believes that. your view now. Me? Is Trump a force for good? I think he's like a storm or a typhoon in that he's a force for nature which brings some good things and some bad things. And I've got into trouble in the past when I've tried to characterize Trump because

he so strongly polarises people. But when I've been critical of him, you know, folk on the right of call me a squish and a salad. And then when I've praised him, people have said, you know, you are a, you know, you're a stooge of a wannabe fascist. What I've tried to do with Trump is to recognize that he's a unique phenomenon and try to make judgments about where I think he's been good or bad without being in a position to make a definitive moral judgment about him. Well, I think that's a wonderful line on which to close. I think it sums up so much for our

conversation. Michael, thank you for your time. That was very generous. Thanks, Alastair. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Can I just say before I'm going to say, I thought. You can apologize, aren't you? I thought, no, I thought that last answer was actually sums him up. It is extraordinary. He equivocated on Trump. On his natural instinct is to be violently pro or against things. I mean, there's very, there's often very little gray.

It's very black and white. You heard that on the Israel thing. You hear that if he and I were getting going on some other issues. Some other issues too. But as soon as you got onto Trump, you see the other side of Michael, which is the very, you know, of equivocation. You know, some people think he's a proto-fascist. Some people think he's a hero. I'm the person in the center ground, right? And of course, that's, again, what he was presenting on Theresa May's Brexit deal. And that relates to my bigger point, which is his extraordinarily lurches from the incredible politeness to the confrontation, which I've found with these ministerial writers.

He'd be very polite to me. Then he'd confront me. Then I'd try to confront him in the ministerial. And then we'd be back to awkwardness and politeness again. Anyway, over you. I mean, it was, the only thing I think is Fiona is not going to be happy with me. She spent several hours giving me a, and we didn't really drill him on it again. He dragged him off to bloody housing. Tell us, if you'd been given a cent, what was the main point you wanted to land on where he could went wrong on education? And I've thought this ever since he was there, that he's an incredibly clever political operator,

but the political operation took precedence over the actual delivery of outcomes that he now says existed, which I don't think they did. And what damage do you think he did in education? Well, I think you really pissed off the teachers, which I, you know, and I can get why they can, you know, and all that thing about the blob and all that stuff, which I don't know, and that's why I was interested to know whether that was him or that was Cummings. And the thing about, I don't know if you remember the Chorri Education thing, but it was this vile social media stuff that was being put out effectively in his name.

And attacking people like Fiona. Well, not Fiona. I can't remember, I'm sure she was, but it was, you know, it was head teachers. It was people who didn't agree with him and so forth. No, so I don't think that, I think he's, look, he's a very charming, very erudite, very funny guy who's very good at talking the talk. And I think if you actually analyse what happened on his watch and education, I'm not convinced that it's a great success story that his supporters will say. But if you'd had longer on education, what do you think you would have got him to say? Well, you wouldn't because what happened?

And the reason I think, probably the reason why you pulled us on to Housie is it was because he can talk the hide legs off a donkey. He does have facts pouring out of his ears. And he sort of tries to persuade you that the fact speak to the narrative he's already got, which is partly what politics is about. I thought it was interesting in part one was, because I've said many times on the podcast, and when Johnson and Gove were the sort of two of the drivers of that government, I don't think journalists do necessarily make good politicians,

because I think that it's always about the story, it's always about the headline, and that's part of what politics is. But when that's the driver of your politics, I think actually he's far more intellectually around it than Johnson. And I don't think we'd have had as in engaging a conversation with Boris Johnson about his political career. But I don't know. I think he's a fascinating character really is.

And the fact that he, you know, if you think about it, every single question we ask, whether you like the answer or you didn't. he sort of answered it pretty straight and you got very annoyed with him because of the Israel Gaza stuff but if you think about it we were asking him questions and he was just answering them dead straight except of course the reason I was getting

irritated is those have been his lines on it for a very long time so I didn't feel he was actually talking to me I felt he was reciting stuff that I had him say 10 years ago you know the beacon of democracy from here to there and all the stuff I've heard anyway we're here in what was Paul Marshall's building

and he reminded us to that and that was another thing I mean, I remember sitting at a dinner hosted by Paul Marshall in Paul Marshall's other building, right? This is the owner of GB News, who he now works for, where Michael was laying into attacking dukes, landed estates, seemed pretty skeptical of the royal family, skeptical of the brigade of guards. You get him to the time. You're not a Tory, are you? And he said, no, I'm not a Tory. I'm a Whig.

It's people like you who are Tories. And so that's another indication, right? So today he's a Tory. Today he's a Tory, right? Now, it depends what he means by a Tory. And is that because he thinks Paul Marshall wanted him not to be a Tory? Well, I think what he has in common with Paul Marshall and why they like each other. And it tells you a lot about the Lib Dems.

Remember, the Lib Dems had in them, Zach Polanski, now leader of the Greens, who's well off to the left of Jeremy Corbyn. And Liz Tross was a Lib Dem. She was. Calling for the abolition of the moniker. Well out of the right. Tax or was it taxation? And Paul Marshall.

now running G.B. News, they all come out of the Lib Dems. Tells you a lot about how broad that party is, right? Now, what does Paul Marshall see in Gove? I think they both actually at some level really don't like the establishment. I think Gove, although he flirted... Which Murdoch says he doesn't as well. Yeah. I think although he flirted with Cameron and Johnson and these people at Oxford, I think he probably did feel quite an outsider. He has got quite a kind of revolutionary Trotsky eye edge to him, which is why he loves people like Dominic Cummings. And he's got these visions the world, which, I mean, this Larry think thing, I didn't want to dig into it. It sounds great as a sound bite because it makes him sound kind of progressive, left-wing, radical. It's complete insanity.

Yeah, it's pretty mad. This is the largest private-exper investors. Just ahead of the budget, you were saying to one of the biggest investors. In the entire world, you know, with trillions under management. Yeah. Get the hell out of here. You know, you're... He wasn't very positive about Kyristan, was he? No, and what does it tell you that the people he likes are people at Shibana Mahmoud? I mean, that's interesting too. What's he looking for in a minister? Who did you say Shabana?

And Wes. And Wes. And Wes. Yeah. He is a quirky character, that's for sure. I think people will enjoy listening to that. I could be wrong. Fiona won't.

Yeah. It's my whole experience running against him in leadership. I mean, you talked about people betraying. We didn't even talk about the leadership campaign. I mean, I should have got into it. This was the guy who famously, you know, in the middle of the leadership campaign. invite me around for a confidential conversation. Exactly.

And then stuffed you. And then stuff me. So it's really, you know, this. But you were, he was charming to you again today. Yeah. I mean, the charm thing is really, really interesting. I sometimes think that people think about me, you see, that I'm a bit of a bastard, really.

But I'm actually a very nice guy. I think with Michael, the first impression is always he's an incredibly nice guy. And I think it's... And then he turns out... And I don't want to become his psychologist, but I think it's part of it. a defence mechanism.

He's one of the most interesting politicians of the modern era. Well, I'm very grateful he came on. He was very relaxing to come on. Yeah, I know. I know. And as I say, I admire him immensely for a lot of what he did as a minister.

And I still don't really understand him as a person. And I don't understand him any better at the end of two hours. And he did tell as he's seeing a psychiatrist. So I remember what's, was it, somebody wrote, I think it was the Guardian, the headline was, being Alastair Campbell's psychiatrist, that is some gig. I reckon it's the same with Michael Gove, over you being Michael go psychiatrist maybe he offered to come back in a few days to talk about it

maybe that could be the next thing yeah good yeah thank you allison see you bye bye