Michael Gove vowed to fight on last night despite suffering a second blow in 48 hours when Amber Rudd backed his leadership rival Jeremy Hunt.
Mr Gove, whose campaign to succeed Theresa May has been rocked by the Daily Mail’s revelations of his past cocaine use, will today insist he is ‘undaunted’ and ready to lead the country.
At his campaign launch the embattled Environment Secretary will say he is the ‘serious leader’ needed for ‘a serious time’. However his bid to win over Miss Rudd, who has also been courted by Boris Johnson, has been wrecked by her decision to support Mr Hunt.
Michael Gove has vowed to battle on in the race for Number 10 despite suffering major campaign setbacks
Seen by some as a Tory ‘kingmaker’, the Work and Pensions Secretary turned down Mr Johnson after he refused to rule out taking Britain out of the EU without a deal.
Tory sources say she has decided that Mr Hunt is best placed to protect the economy from any damage during Brexit.
Further Cabinet heavyweights are expected to back the Foreign Secretary as he tries to cement his claim as the ‘Stop Boris’ candidate.
Mr Gove was last night battling to put his leadership campaign back on track following his confession that he took cocaine on ‘several social occasions’ 20 years ago.
In an uncomfortable live TV interview he said his actions were a crime and he was fortunate not to have been caught and prosecuted.
Amber Rudd, seen by many as a Tory ‘kingmaker’, has snubbed Gove in favour of Jeremy Hunt
‘It was a profound mistake and I’ve seen the damage that drugs do,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen it close up and I’ve also seen it in the work that I’ve done as a politician and that’s why I deeply regret the mistake that I made.’
His admission came as:
- France’s Emmanuel Macron warned of reprisals if Boris Johnson tried to withhold the £39billion Brexit divorce payment;
- Health Secretary Matt Hancock revealed plans to introduce a state-backed insurance scheme to end the scandal of people having to sell their homes to pay for social care;
- Mr Hunt said German Chancellor Angela Merkel has told him the EU was ‘willing to negotiate’ on the Brexit deal with a new prime minister;
- Former Tory chairman Baroness Warsi called for Mr Gove to withdraw from the race while ‘mired in this issue of trust and hypocrisy’;
- A biography exclusively serialised in the Mail today discloses that Mr Gove was not, as he thought until this year, born to a student in Edinburgh who gave him up for adoption. His mother was instead an unmarried cookery demonstrator who gave birth in Aberdeen;
- The book records that he would ‘wind up’ Theresa May together with David Cameron and George Osborne, and once criticised her so virulently that one onlooker described it as ‘like domestic abuse’;
- Sajid Javid, whose leadership campaign has been boosted by the support of Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson, said Britain was ready to elect its first ethnic minority PM.
Mr Gove will today unveil plans to abolish VAT after Brexit, saying: ‘I have led from the front undaunted by criticism and resolute in the need to solve complex issues because that is what our country needs.’
Tory sources say Rudd decided that Mr Hunt is best placed to protect the economy from any damage during Brexit
But he continued to face pressure about his past drug use yesterday. On the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, he struggled to answer questions about how he had completed US visa forms that demand details of drug use.
And he faced accusations of hypocrisy over revelations that he had passed a law as education secretary that banned teachers from working in schools if they were convicted of using Class A drugs. A source close to Mr Gove last night said he had taken legal advice from a QC who was ‘satisfied Michael completed his US visa forms correctly’.
The source said that a code of conduct banning teachers from using Class A drugs had pre-dated his time in office.
But Mr Gove faced claims of hypocrisy over a column he wrote for The Times in 1999 hitting out at ‘London’s liberal consensus’ around decriminalisation of drugs. Some senior Tories rallied round the Environment Secretary yesterday, saying his past mistakes should not be held against him.
Leadership rival Esther McVey said: ‘I hope people will actually judge him by how good he’s been as a politician. So I do believe he can, he said it was something he did 20 years ago and he regrets it.’
Fellow Tory Michael Fabricant said: ‘What someone did 20 years ago – before becoming an MP and not hurting anyone else – is a complete irrelevance.’ But Home Secretary Sajid Javid put the boot in in an interview with Sky News.
He said: ‘Anyone who takes drugs should be thinking about how they are not just hurting themselves, but how they are destroying so many countless lives on the way.’
Boris Johnson has emerged as the odds-on favourite for leader, despite adopting a ‘submarine’ strategy that has seen his advisers shield him from public scrutiny
There are 11 Tory MPs currently vying for the party leadership and the keys to Number 10
Mr Gove said he fully accepted that ‘drugs wreck lives’. But he suggested his past mistakes had made him a rounder individual, saying: ‘It is because I know about human frailty that I am committed in politics to helping everyone I can.
‘I believe that every life is precious and that everyone has worth and that whatever people have done in the past we should look for the treasure in the heart of every man and try to give people the chance to make a contribution.’
Nominations for the contest to succeed Mrs May close this afternoon, with 11 candidates expected to stand. Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt was last night still considering whether to throw her hat into the ring.
On Thursday, Tory MPs will hold the first in a series of votes designed to whittle the field of candidates down to two, who will then face a run-off decided by the party’s 160,000 members.
Mr Johnson has emerged as the odds-on favourite, despite adopting a ‘submarine’ strategy that has seen his advisers shield him from public scrutiny in order to minimise the risk of a catastrophic gaffe.
Mr Gove had been in close contention with Mr Hunt for the second place on the ballot paper. But he was drifting in the betting markets last night in the wake of the drug revelations.
His troubles will give new hope to Mr Hancock and Mr Javid, whose campaigns have yet to catch fire, that they could yet make it on to the final ballot paper.
Chancellor Philip Hammond, Miss Mordaunt and Business Secretary Greg Clark are expected to be among the Cabinet heavyweights ready to support Mr Hunt.
Dominic Raab’s campaign faltered as hardline Brexiteers Steve Baker and Priti Patel fell behind Mr Johnson.
And Tory sources said Theresa May’s deputy David Lidington was set to back Mr Hancock.
HENRY DEEDES watches as Michael Gove faces Andrew Marr
When a suspect is hauled down to the cop shop, it is customary for the plod in charge of the interrogation to keep them waiting a while.
The idea is to let them stew in their own juices as they consider their fate. With any luck, by the time you get to them they’re ready to spill the borlotti.
Such tactics were at the forefront of Andrew Marr’s strategy when he welcomed Michael Gove on to his Sunday morning programme yesterday.
Mr Gove, the public has learned via this newspaper, was once, as prosecuting silks might say, a user of cocaine.
Michael Gove’s shock cocaine revelations were the main subject in a grilling by Andrew Marr
The revelations are of such inconvenience to the Environment Secretary’s leadership ambitions he voluntarily reported to Broadcasting House for questioning.
DI Marr kept the man hoping to be our next prime minister waiting a whole half an hour. He first wished to cross-examine fellow leadership candidate Esther McVey and Labour’s chief Morris dancer Barry Gardiner. Drugs? No, gov, never touched ’em, they both insisted.
Eventually, his attention turned to Mr Gove. For the benefit of the tape, let the record show the suspect at this point shuffled gingerly in his chair. Under the studio lights we saw the Govester’s once auburn locks are now quite grey.
Fellow Scotsman Marr decided to delay the fast bowling for a bit, leaving the Bolivian marching powder business for later on. First, a few gentle looseners on his guest’s leadership ambitions.
Mr Gove said he was ready to be prime minister. Ready from day one.
‘I have the experience,’ he said assertively, sounding a bit like an over-eager contestant on The Apprentice.
‘I have proven in every job I have done against the odds, that I can deliver. I have shown in every opportunity I have had to deliver that I can deliver.’ Stand and deliver!
If PM, he would seek a renegotiation on Theresa May’s deal with Brussels, led by himself and a smart troupe of officials. Google translate: Hopeless Whitehall Sir Humphrey Olly Robins won’t be anywhere near it.
Marr, oddly, kept asking questions about what would happen ‘under Michael Gove’ as though they were discussing someone else.
Finally, we came to the thorny issue of drugs. As Mr Marr began addressing this, his programme’s director went all Sergio Leone, slowly panning in on Mr Gove’s face, hoping, perhaps, to reveal signs of tension.
The Gove brow, I should point out, remained bone-dry.
Was it a ‘habit’, Mr Marr asked of the Govester’s Keef Richards period? ‘I don’t believe it was,’ he replied matter of factly.
Did he deserve to go to prison for his activities? Mr Gove agreed he was fortunate not to have seen the inside of a jail cell. Steady! He hadn’t so much donned a hair shirt as opted for a bit of Opus Dei- style self-laceration.
Marr then pursued the suggestion in one Sunday newspaper that Mr Gove’s confession might result in him being banned from travelling to the United States. Of all the off-cuts from this saga, this is surely the most ludicrous. Miguel coolly suggested that if he became prime minister, the idea our closest ally might bar him from entering the country might be slightly fanciful.
The hypocrisy charge was Marr’s next tactic. He pointed out that while Mr Gove was education secretary, teachers were suspended if they were caught taking drugs. Is it a case of one law for politicians and another for the rest? ‘I wouldn’t want to look in to individual cases,’ said Gove. This is politico speak for ‘let’s not go there…’
We briefly got to hear about Gove’s plan to scrap VAT, a pleasing enough sounding policy, though how often have we heard a Tory pledge to simplify the tax system and yet nothing ever happen?
Suddenly, Marr announced it was time roll the credits. Phew! We would be spared the embarrassing dad-rock act which usually ends the show.
Mr Gove now awaits the verdict of his supporters. I suspect he’ll escape this mess with a mild caution.
