P.A.
Michael Gove resigned as an MP ahead of the last general election.
Former Conservative cabinet minister Michael Gove said the attacks on his ex-wife Sarah Vine from critics were the “most hurtful thing” of his political career.
Mr Gove said Mr Vine, who was considering supporting Boris Johnson as Conservative Party leadership candidate after the 2016 Brexit vote, was “portrayed as a sort of Lady Macbeth figure”. .
He said: “The fact that she was attacked in such a way during a time of general turmoil was incredibly hurtful.”
Mr Gove, who resigned as an MP ahead of June’s general election, spoke about his most difficult period in politics in a new series on BBC Radio 4.
In Surviving Politics with Michael Gove, the former education secretary speaks candidly with politicians from across the political spectrum about the strength and skills needed in difficult times.
In one episode, Mr Gove interviewed Labour’s spin doctor and former cabinet minister Peter Mandelson.
Mr Gove, who is now editor of the Spectator magazine, asked Mr Mandelson what advice he would give to new Labor MPs entering Parliament after this year’s general election.
“Be clear about what you believe, what your beliefs are, what your project is, and what you want to accomplish,” Mandelson says.
Getty Images
Journalist Sarah Vine and Gove to divorce in 2022
He then asked Gove: “All sorts of things have happened to you in your political career. What is one thing that has really hurt you personally?”
Mr Gove recalled how in 2016 he accidentally sent a private email meant for Mr Vine and his aides to a member of the public, whose contents were leaked to the press.
In the email, Ms Vine advised her husband to obtain assurances from Mr Johnson about his candidacy for leadership “that otherwise we cannot guarantee support”.
Two days later, Gove made a sudden attempt to become leader of the Conservative Party, and Johnson abruptly withdrew.
Mr Gove said he “still loves his ex-wife very much” and disputed comparisons to Lady Macbeth, saying she was a “strong woman”.
Mr Gove said: ‘It’s always okay to think that if you’re attacked on the ground, yes, you’re willing to defend yourself.
“But it’s especially difficult when it’s a misunderstanding or misunderstanding that affects someone close to you.”
He added: “That’s when people try to build a narrative and bring in someone else and that person becomes collateral damage in their attack on you. It hurts a lot.”
Mandelson said she saw “an echo of that in my own life, with my own partner, now my husband, when they sought him out and they did it.”
“I never thought that just because you were gay, you could necessarily become an MP,” Mandelson said in an interview.
He lived openly with his partner and said people had told him “it would be very difficult to be chosen.”
“And it was an uphill battle. In the 1987 election, the first campaign I led, I was viciously targeted by the News of the World,” he said.
Mandelson spoke about the divisions within the Labor Party and the power struggle between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair for leadership of the party in the 1990s.
Mr Mandelson described Health Secretary Wes Streeting as “courageous” during a conversation about the current Labor government’s “change-makers”.
Mr Mandelson said: “Bravery and recklessness? Unless you become a minister like that, you realize there’s no point in being in politics.”
He said, “If there were other players like Wes Streeting, I would definitely support them.”
You can listen to all episodes of Surviving Politics with Michael Gove on BBC Sounds from Monday 21 October 2024.
