Trump is 'autocratic and imperious' - Michael Gove

Michael Gove, now Lord Gove of Torry in the City of Aberdeen, was a cabinet minister under David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. He ran to be leader of the Conservatives twice, famously killed off Boris Johnson's first tilt at the top job but backed him on Brexit, spectacularly falling out with David Cameron in the process in a drama portrayed in sometimes excruciating detail in a book by his ex-wife Sarah Vine. He has now gone back to his first trade of journalism as editor of the Spectator magazine.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
He's naturally autocratic and imperious.
I personally think that there's no benefit for Britain remaining
in the ECHR. No benefit at all?
No. If it was politics and a career
in politics, that was your your first love.
Do you regret that? Maybe the world might have been
better if, instead of trying to change it, I had concentrated

(00:22):
on, after university, becoming ahistory teacher.
Hello and welcome to Ways to Change the World.
I'm Christian Guru Murphy, and this is the podcast in which we
talk to extraordinary people about the big ideas in their
lives and the events that have helped shape them.
My guest this week is Michael Gove, now Lord Gove of Tory in

(00:44):
the city of Aberdeen, a cabinet minister under David Cameron,
Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.
He ran to be leader of the Conservatives twice, famously
killed off Boris Johnson's firsttilt at the top job, but backed
him on Brexit spectacularly, falling out with David Cameron
in the process, in a drama portrayed and sometimes
excruciating detail in a book byhis ex-wife Sarah Vine.

(01:08):
He has now gone back to his first trade of journalism as
editor of The Spectator magazine.
Michael, welcome. Hi, Krishna.
How did you want to change the world when you decided to go
into politics? I thought that it was critically
important, having been a commentator and having spent a
fair amount of time telling people, including some of my

(01:30):
friends, what it was that they needed to do both to improve the
Conservative Party and to improve the country, that when I
was challenged, well, if you've got these ideas, if you care so
much, do something about it, notto run away from the sound of
gunfire. And in particular, I was
uniquely fortunate in that a number of things came together.
As you mentioned, David Cameron as leader of the Conservative

(01:53):
Party was someone whom I'd supported to become leader.
He'd been an outsider, but when he was leader he put me into the
job which I in in a sense couldn't have wanted more, which
was to be the shadow and then the real education secretary.
And for a host of reasons, I think the single most important

(02:15):
thing that that any politician can do is to equip young people
with the opportunity to make thedecisions that they want in
their lives. And I used a phrase, making
people authors of their own lifestory, which might seem a bit
sort of, you know, cutesy or arch.
But that was at the heart of what I think is, you know, the

(02:35):
single most important thing thatanyone can do in politics.
So. So going into politics wasn't
the lifelong dream. I mean, you make it sound as if
you were sort of dead into it. There was an element of that.
And I'd always been interested in politics precociously so.
I wasn't reading Hansard under the bedclothes at the age of 11.
But I was always interested in in history, in current affairs.
And when I was a journalist, even though I was a sort of

(02:58):
general reporter at different points and covering a variety of
things, and then a columnist whowould write sometimes about
topics which had nothing to do with domestic politics, that was
the main focus. And it was also the case that I
had a a group of contemporaries from university and beyond who
were involved in politics and I was involved in conversations
with them about what I felt would be the right direction for

(03:22):
the Conservative Party as a natural Tory and also for the
country to take. So.
So when you talk about making people the authors of their own
story, how much of that came from your own extraordinary sort
of jump, I suppose, from where you grew up to where you had got
to? I think.

(03:42):
You know you, you had grown up in in, in a fairly humble
background. Yes, in a fishing family.
Yeah, exactly. So I wouldn't want to exaggerate
it, but but it's certainly the case that I I was adopted at the
age of four months. I spent the first four months of
my life in care. Obviously I've got no

(04:03):
recollection. Perhaps buried deep in my
subconscious, there may be influences from that time.
But so far as I can remember, I remember my my parents who loved
me unconditionally and who had adopted me, supported me.
So I was surrounded by love and warmth, but they were not people
with money to ban, as it were. My my dad ran a small business

(04:24):
which subsequently ran into trouble.
But what they did do was providethe environment and then later
on the financial support that allowed me to have an amazing
education. And I was very struck by the
fact that when I was appointed to be the Shadow Education
Secretary, I had a look at what was then the least well
performing school in England. It was geographically as the as

(04:48):
the as the crow flies, as far away from the care home that I
grew up in Edinburgh as my home in Aberdeen was.
It was in the north of England. There it was the case that only
1% of children got 5 good GCSEs,including English and Maths, and
it just struck me that a series of pieces of good fortune

(05:10):
essentially had given me the opportunity to make choices,
good or bad. Whereas the children who were
growing up in that environment and in that school had their
horizons narrowed to an extent that meant that they were always
going to be subject to decisionsmade by others rather than by
themselves. So what?
Why were you a natural conservative?
I think there were at least two things.
And I wasn't always a conservative.

(05:31):
I was interested in politics, asI say, from a relatively early
age, and when I was younger I thought of myself as left wing.
How? Much younger.
What age do you mean? So in 1983, when I was 16, I
stood as the Labour candidate inthe school election.
I joined the Aberdeen N Labour Party.
I canvassed for Labour then by the time I arrived.

(05:54):
In Michael Futstein. In Michael Futstein I arrived at
university in 1985 and in the intervening period, essentially
for English listeners and viewers, sixth form for the
final two years of my secondary education in Aberdeen, I
realised that I was in a number of ways, naturally small and

(06:15):
large. C Conservative.
So everything from the the writers that I enjoyed, the way
I looked at the world made me feel that, to borrow the phrase
from Margaret Thatcher, that thefacts of life were conservative.
And of course, growing up duringthe time that Margaret Thatcher
was Prime Minister was I think for lots of young people, a

(06:35):
polarizing point. Whatever subsequent political
views they had. It was a time when people were
invited to to choose sides. And when I went up to
university, it was the minor strike.
And so for many young people, itwould have naturally been the
case that they would have felt, if not radicalized, certainly
strongly identifying with the left.
I saw Margaret Thatcher at the time, someone who was trying to

(06:57):
wrench Britain out of the the decline that had afflicted it in
the 1970s. How?
How, how much did you see that for yourself and how much were
you influenced by being in Oxford, where the establishment,
where the Conservative Party reigns, where the Oxford Union
is a little sort of, you know, Conservative Party playpen?

(07:18):
I think it's inevitably the casethat the the, the friends that
you form it at university have an impact.
But I think when I arrived, I remember in the early debates in
which I took part in the Oxford Union and I'd been involved in
debating at school. It's a very Scottish school
tradition and so if I'd gone to any other university, I would

(07:42):
have been involved in debating Oxford.
The natural human debating is the Oxford Union.
And as you say, it's much more than a debating society.
It's a playground for aspirant politicians.
But when I arrived, I remember that the positions that I took
in those debates were conservative already before I,
you know, knew many of the otherundergraduates there or the, OR

(08:04):
the law of the land. Curiously, at that time, the,
the, the predominant political flavour of Oxford was SDP
Liberal Alliance. It was a, a centrist Wonderland
rather than a, a sort of predominantly Tory environment.
But it was the case that there were people who became my

(08:25):
friends at that time who subsequently obviously featured
in Conservative politics, most prominently, of course, Ed
Vasey, who was a direct contemporary of mine, who's been
a lifelong friend and who of course went into concerted
politics at the same time. I suppose I'm asking because
Sarah Vine, your ex-wife who satin that chair, has talked a
little bit about how she felt you as a couple was sort of

(08:46):
slightly seduced by the glamour of the Cameron court.
Yes. And I wonder whether the same
thing happened to you in Oxford and that you were slightly
seduced by the Conservative philosophy because you saw
people who were glamorous and powerful and rich and part of
the establishment, and you weren't.
I think it's probably the case that I wasn't.

(09:06):
I think in fact I definitely wasn't.
I think that if you come from Scotland or almost any other
part of Scotland, then you are at one remove curiously from the
English class system. I wouldn't want to exaggerate
that, but I think that there is a sense that you are looking at

(09:30):
the particular dynamics that operate there in a slightly
different way. And the, the, the, the, the
school that I went to in Scotland has its analogues in,
in England, you know, the the equivalent of a sort of merchant
tailors or haberdasher as a merchant school which has
aspirant middle and lower middleclass parents and children from

(09:50):
a variety of backgrounds. But they tend to be not
naturally establishment figures,but maritocratic.
But it, it imbues, I think students from that background
with a, a sort of belief in hardwork and aspiration overall.
So I think that was the mindset.But also I think that some part

(10:14):
of my conservatism is, and I know this sounds poncy, but is
aesthetic. So there are things from my
views on architecture to my taste in music, which are, you
know, very old school and I thatneedn't necessarily this.
Is post talk rationalisation? Isn't turn you into a political

(10:36):
conservative. I think it's one of the reasons
why I became or realised I was more conservative when I was
16/17/18 is that the writers that I, the fiction writers that
I enjoyed, had a conservative temperament, whether that was
Jane Austen, Evelyn Wall, Anthony Pohl.

(10:56):
And so it's a way of looking at the world, it's a temperament,
it's an attitude which I think helps to explain things.
And of course, one of my heroes whom I subsequently had the
chance to meet, Roger Scruton, was also someone who came from a
lower middle class background. In his case, he was an English

(11:18):
grammar schoolboy. And his conservatism, I think
that's one of the reasons why his work spoke to me, was of
course partly political. But it was also when it came to
everything from nature and the environment to architectural
music, It was aesthetically conservative.
So did did you have a vision? I mean, you've spoken very
specifically about education, but did you have a broader
vision of how you wanted Britainto be in a way that it wasn't

(11:41):
how you wanted to change it? Yes, going into politics.
Yes. So I think it's important to
appreciate that obviously there I was as a student between 1985
and 1988. Then I subsequently went into a
journalism, into reporting, and it was only later in 2004 that I
applied to become a, a candidatein 2005, became an MP.

(12:04):
During that period I was reporting on and friends with
people in politics. And part of being a Conservative
is that you tend not to have an overarching template or an ideal
view of how the world should be.And in fact you're suspicious of
that. You view the attempts to create

(12:26):
heaven on earth as likely to create more havoc than harmony.
And so therefore my views were partly reactive, they were
partly about the things which I felt were going wrong.
And I certainly felt one of the things that was wrong in
Britain, and of course I was influenced by my own experience,
particularly wrong in England, was that the education system
was not providing people either with the the opportunity or with

(12:50):
a connection with a broader culture that I believed was
their their right. So do you, do you think I mean,
because politics is obsessed by change now?
Yes, we always talk about changeelections.
Do you think that's fundamentally misguided?
I didn't think it is because, well, I think that if you just
think about change the abstract,of course, it has a very
powerful pull. I think what is more important

(13:11):
is to identify those areas whereeither you need to tame or
insulate people from change and then those areas where you need
to lean in. And again, you know, part of
the, the art of politics is identifying what the, the, the
challenges are at any one time. One of the reasons why I'm not
on the left is that my sense, and people might think this is

(13:34):
unfair, is that there is always a search for the next social
justice crusade and that sometimes that impetus to make
things better can be noble. But sometimes it means that you
can take up causes because it appears to be the next big
thing. And people will think that the
sacrifices of a Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks in the in the

(13:57):
past, it's their obligation to repeat now.
But some of the causes that theythey choose or the means that
they use I think are inappropriate.
Isn't that exactly what the Cameron Conservative Party did
though, with both gay marriage and the environment?
Well, I think that both of them were absolutely the right things
to do. So I think that gay marriage was

(14:20):
the culmination of a progress towards equality for people on
the basis of their sexual orientation, on who they love,
and it was absolutely the right thing to do on the environment.
I think it's inescapable that during the course of our
lifetime that people have becomemore and more aware of the

(14:43):
consequences of our way of life for the the planet on which we
live. I think it was a friend of mine,
Henry Dimbleby, who has been a very successful entrepreneur in
the world of food, who made the point that capitalism is
brilliant. That's how you generate wealth.
That's how you generate innovation.
But there are two unavoidable and malign consequences of

(15:07):
capitalism, inequality and dirt.And by dirt he meant
environmental degradation. And I think that's right.
And I think if you're a conservative, you should always
recognise that you're not there to serve the free market, you
are there to support human flourishing.
And that if you try to ignore the fact that capitalism is
always going to generate, sometimes exacerbate inequality

(15:29):
and it's always going to create environmental degradation.
If you don't acknowledge that, you're not acknowledging human
dignity. On the broader question then, of
of inequality, the Conservative governments failed, didn't they,
over 14 years? I think almost every Western
government failed. I think there were a variety of
reasons why inequality has become an even more salient

(15:53):
issue in our politics and politics in America and and in
Europe. That's not to absolve the
Conservative government from that responsibility.
And one of the reasons why I became convinced that levelling
up a phrase that people associate with Boris Johnson and
therefore discount was so important is because unless you

(16:17):
tackle inequality, then society becomes more polarized.
And I know that there's a sort of an argument associated with
Margaret Thatcher that provided everyone's material
circumstances improve the distance between top and bottom,
doesn't. My sense was that one of the
factors that has transformed politics, that is driving what

(16:41):
we call populism, has been the sense that the the disconnect
between the people who have advantages, money, connections,
qualifications and others has only grown.
And there's this old Israeli phrase, it's almost been a
cliche that England has two nations, the rich and the poor
between them, between whom thereis neither intercourse nor

(17:04):
understanding. Very old fashioned way of
looking at things. But funnily enough, it's almost
the case that that description of Victorian England became
truer. And you saw that in the way in
which people voted in Brexit. So, so do you look at the way we
are now and feel that that we failed, that you failed or or or
or do you absolve yourself with that responsibility because you

(17:26):
say, well, all, all modern societies are facing these
problems? I don't think that.
I certainly don't absolve myselfof any responsibility.
I'm as responsible as anyone forthings that went right and
things that went wrong. You know how plagued are you by
it? Reflecting all the time, but and

(17:47):
I don't think that there is eversuch a thing as a perpetual
victory or an enduring success in politics.
You know, one of the things thatmakes me conservative is the
belief that there will always benew problems and new crises that
emerge. And again, my other one of my

(18:08):
other favorite cliches out of the crooked timber of humanity,
no straight thing is ever made. Which is all the way of
recognizing that while it's great to to dream and to
conceive of a better future, it's always the case with human
beings and with politics and a democracy, that things are
messy, compromised, and often fail.

(18:30):
I mean, your, your big achievement beyond continuing
the education reforms that will obviously be seen as Brexit, you
were a key face, pillar, intellectual backbone of the
Brexit campaign. When you look at the economic
impact of Brexit almost 10 yearson and you look at the impacts

(18:51):
on what you've just been talkingabout inequality, you know, do
you, do you understand why people feel Brexit's been so
damaging? I completely understand why so
many people are opposed to and remain opposed to that decision.
Do you think it? Was worth it.
Oh, definitely for the economic.Definitely.
Damage, it's done. So we we can argue about the,

(19:14):
the, the economic impact and there are different judgements,
but I certainly think it's the case that there are people who
can point to undoubted economic impediments that have been
created as a result of that. There's no, no question of that.
However, an argument that I think has some weight that that

(19:34):
that another person used first is that for almost the 1st 40 or
50 years after Ireland became independent, after 1922, Ireland
lagged further behind the rest of what had been the British
Isles economically. And it was only really in the
70s and 80s that Ireland began to find its economic feet.

(19:55):
Would anyone have said, would anyone say now that it was a
mistake for for Ireland to secede from what had been the
United Kingdom? I don't think so.
But if you had gone into the Brexit campaign saying it might
take us 50 years to see any realbenefits, which funnily enough,
Jacob Rees Mogg did let slip in ways.

(20:16):
To change and also but Boris. You wouldn't.
You may not, maybe wouldn't havewon.
Boris did make the point, I think we all made the point, A,
that there would be bumps in theroad and B, Boris's point was
that there will be pain before there's there's gain.
And ultimately Brexit was about more than economics.
It's about making sure that politicians in this country are

(20:38):
directly responsible for the decisions that they make.
And in a way, the 2024 election and the fact that Conservatives
were I was rejected so powerfully is a way of, of, of
actually saying that the, the room or the scope for
politicians to make excuses had diminished.

(20:59):
And it's within the grasp of a politician, whether it's Labour,
Conservative or from another party to make a success by using
the tools that are available to them.
And I have friends within the Labour Party, admittedly,
they're a minority within the Labour Party whose frustration
is that some of the tools which are available because of Brexit

(21:22):
are not being used in a progressive way.
And they could be, they could bein terms of industrial policy,
they could be in terms of trade policy and and in fact,
opposition to our membership of what became the European Union
used to be a hallmark not just of Labour's left, but of
Labour's centre. But hasn't hasn't the big
failure of Brexit though been toaddress people's concerns about

(21:45):
immigration? You know, a lot of people voted
for Brexit because they thought it would control European
migration and what they got instead was non European
migration on on a vast scale andhence we are where we are now.
Well, again, there are two things.
I think the most important thing, you're right, is the
sense of control over migration and the the fact that migration

(22:11):
increased significantly. And one can argue about where
migration has come from, what the reasons were.
But for the majority of people in this country, two things
sheer weight of numbers and alsothe fact that illegal migration
appears to be something that can't be effectively controlled
by the state. Both of those things have
created huge political. Property but you were in these

(22:33):
governments while hundreds of thousands of non EU migrants
were coming into to Britain. I mean what were you not aware
of what you were doing? Did you?
Did you feel you were possibly stocking, you know, Nigel
Farage's fire by allowing all ofthis?
And if not, why not? No, I, I, it sounds as though
I'm running away from responsibility.

(22:54):
I, I'm, I mustn't do that. My particular concern when it
came to migration was with respect to the Homes for Ukraine
programme. That was the area for which I
was directly responsible. There were other areas, the
conversation between the the Home Office and the NHS over the
the workforce that was required there, the conversation between

(23:17):
the Department of Transport and the Treasury over how we could
ensure that our whole system worked, which were conversations
which were happening elsewhere. So you weren't seeing the bigger
picture. No, I didn't think I was, and it
was, well, except towards the end.
So I do remember before Robert Gerrick resigned, there were

(23:39):
conversations. It's not about Rwanda, which of
course was the deterrent scheme that he felt was not being
implemented properly, but about other steps which were
subsequently taken by James Cleverly actually to tighten
things where I did believe and do believe that action was
required. But I'm, I must be held
responsible for not being sufficiently vigilant in that
area. The only what's the word

(24:02):
excusive excuse it is that I would offer is that it is
everyone in government has to collect your responsibility for
what happens when they're in government.
But within government there is astrong bias towards sticking to
your knitting. So we assume that within Cabinet
it's like an editorial conference at Channel 4 News

(24:22):
where everyone pitches in with their views.
Actually, it tends to be the case that Cabinet will hear from
the lead minister in one particular area and a detailed
cross examination of what he or she is doing.
I'm encouraged in that environment.
And that is one of the problems.I, I, I, I think in, in
government, perhaps it's inherent in party politics that

(24:44):
you don't have the, the thrashing out of disagreement in
the way that one should. I.
Mean that's that's quite astonishing as an admission that
you know that half a million people were coming in or more
into the country and and it was never being discussed at cabinet
even though Robert Jenrick was clearly going furious or is he
making it all up now sort of post.

(25:05):
No, I, I don't think he is. And I think, I think that in, in
his case, and again, I think this is an, you know, it's, it's
illustrative. So Rob had been in different
ministerial roles. Then he finds himself in the
Home Office and as he describes it, and I can entirely
understand it, he was radicalised by being in the Home

(25:25):
Office and seeing what the reality was.
The figures about the scale onlybecame clear to to to many
almost after the fact. So what you had was an
accumulation of individual decisions on care workers, on
other areas, which led to the significant increase in numbers

(25:50):
that we had overall. And I should have been more
vigilant and my only excuse is that my job at different times
is either dealing with COVID or then dealing with levelling up,
housing, building safety and so on.
So let's talk about reform then,because that that's what where
this is all led to, isn't it? Did you?

(26:12):
Do you think Nigel Farage is in a good position to be Prime
Minister? I think that the concern over
migration is only one aspect of reforms success.
I think that Nigel Farage is, that's a big one, has a 40%
chance of, you know, either leading or being in a

(26:35):
government. But the broader point is he in a
good position to be as in shouldwe sleep easily in our beds or
feel confident about it? No, because, and, and here I
don't want to sound like a licensed Tory attack dog because
I think one has to appreciate, you know, Nigel Farage's

(26:57):
significant achievement in taking his party to this
position. But there are two aspects to
reform that would give me 'causeof concern.
One is the difficulty that NigelFarage has shown consistently in
assembling and keeping a a team.And the second is the lack of

(27:21):
coherence when it comes to making the difficult choices and
trade-offs that are inevitable in politics.
And you see that most acutely inthe approach he's taken towards
how he might pay for his programme.
Yeah, I mean that that those areoften quoted criticisms of
reform and and it kind of relieson the idea that Britain will
sort of ultimately look more seriously at at what kind of

(27:44):
government Nigel Farage might lead.
At the moment, Britain's not showing much sign of that.
It's all instinctive. They they are sick to death of
the traditional parties and they're sort of embracing
anything years away from an an election.
I think, I think it was spot on.I think that is what one of the
issues, which is that I'm conscious that in in raising
these issues, which you correctly describe as the sort

(28:05):
of standard issue political class critiques that there are
lots of people out there who will say this is just the sort
of technocratic junk that you people always come up with.
We've had enough of that. Don't you realise that we need
to change far more fundamental II understand that, even as I

(28:25):
disagree with it, but I think you are right to say that the
concerns that I raise may be, you know, out of place.
How How alarmed are you, though,by the tone of the debate,
particularly on immigration? I'm alarmed by the tone of the
debate in lots of areas and certainly on migration and more
particularly, And this is less an an issue, I think than any of

(28:48):
the, you know, politicians involved.
It's more with commentators online and elsewhere who have an
influence on the political conversation.
There was a recent conversation about online about whether or
not Rishi Sunak was English. Yeah, I mean, it used to be
novice that he's English. And you know, this attempt to

(29:13):
try to question implicitly the the place of Rishi Sunak or
David Lammy or Kenny Badenoch, as you know, integral to the
life of, of England. I'm, I'm not English, I'm
Scottish, I'm British. But you know, you, you can't

(29:35):
imagine the England football team if you applied the test
that some people are applying, which says that Rishi isn't
English. And so I, I, I do think that
there are, are some voices that feel emboldened in talking about
culture and identity in a way which instead of being, you

(29:58):
know, as is sometimes required, honest and discussing
uncomfortable truths seems to becloser to be seeking to divide
rather than to offer appropriatechallenge.
I mean, it's working for reform in terms of dividing.
But the Conservatives are asked as well.
I mean, Robert Jenrick is talking up the dangers of

(30:21):
undocumented migrants, asylum seekers in this country, the
threat to societies, the decencyof people who are protesting
against this in places like Epping, are you?
I mean, the, the, the debate's changed, hasn't it, over your
lifetime? I mean, he's saying things that
would be it had been unimaginable 20 years ago.

(30:44):
And I think that both of the, the, the points that you, you,
you make have validity. So on the one hand, the, the
scale of migration sheer numbersin recent years has been
significantly greater than it had been before.
And we can, we have touched on some of the reasons why that's
caused concern and the responsesto that have varied.

(31:08):
I think also there was a sense in which any questioning either
of numbers or of the cultural aswell as the economic impact was
regarded as taboo. And when you create create
taboo, 2 things happen. One, there are people who enjoy

(31:28):
the the the wicked thrill of breaking it, and two, there are
others who feel shy about raising some of the genuine
questions. So it is absolutely right, I
think, for example, to ask some questions which are inevitably
uncomfortable about some of the connections between the

(31:48):
specifics of the grooming gang scandal and the backgrounds of
many of the perpetrators. And there were attempts to, you
know, not confront those things head on for reasons that Andrew
Norfolk, the reporter who first uncovered the scandal, I think
very well explained because he was worried that they would fan

(32:09):
deepened malevolent prejudice. But we know that actually a
failure to examine the truth there has only created greater
difficulties. At the same time, you also have
people who felt licensed to ask questions and talk about things
like the remigration of people born in the UK who haven't

(32:34):
committed crimes were deemed notto have integrated sufficiently.
I think that that is, you know, a a terrible thing.
But what would you think about the sort of the current panic
around asylum seekers, illegal immigrants, you know, call them
whatever you want, coming into Britain and being put up in

(32:56):
accommodation? You know, Robert Jenrick is
calling them a national securitythreat and stocking up the
possibility that they're involved in crime and sexual
crimes. Well, I think.
What do you think of all of that?
So I think that we are sometimesover action.
We have to recognise of course, what what politicians and what
commentators say will help move and influence public debate.

(33:19):
But in a way it wouldn't matter what Robert Frederick or Nigel
Farage or anyone else said. The experience of people in
Epping has been that they feel uncomfortable about that change.
We might think that they're wrong, but it's do.

(33:39):
Do you think they're wrong? I completely understand why they
feel as they do, because they feel that there's been no
effective consultation and it's also been the case.
As they never would be that. That's a really weird 1 isn't
it? Because people are never
consulted about these sorts of things.
They're consulted at election time.
That's that's when you can consult the people.

(34:01):
But I think there's a problem, but it goes back to your your
earlier and I think very correctpoint about this being a change
that comes on top of a sense that the level of migration into
this country had been greater than people had willingly given
consent to. And it's also the case that

(34:23):
there are particular challenges if you have a group of young men
in any environment like that whodon't have the, what's the word,
the the guiding influence of a family or other structure around

(34:47):
them. So do you do you think all the
main political parties are goingto have to be tough on
immigration I now. I think I think the public
clearly feel and for entirely understandable reasons that the
rate and pace of change is unsustainable.
And I would want to see an approach which didn't attempt to

(35:17):
belittle or what's the word gas like even the concerns that
people are expressing, but by addressing them also ensured
that what you don't have is the exploitation of those concerns
by people who have a a more wicked agenda and here but.

(35:39):
They are big exploits, aren't they?
In truth? I mean, immigration has been
weaponized as an issue in British politics.
It is the issue in British politics right now.
I don't think it's the issue, I think fundamentally the cost of
living and the economic plight of of the country.
Well, it's it's the issue driving reform.
It's but it's certainly increased in salience and

(36:00):
importance, certainly governs a lot of our conversation.
But you can't say to the countrythat this is a concern that has
been somehow magicked into existence by politicians as
sorcerers or hypnotists. That concern exists and and

(36:24):
similarly. So that's what I mean.
So everyone's going to have to sound tough and a bit and a bit.
Meaner. I think it's and the.
Tone is going to change around. I think it's that's a case of
sounding tough and more demonstrating control and I and.
You know, bearing in mind how many of those asylum seekers who
coming over, who've been coming over on boats have been given

(36:47):
asylum or leave to remain their,their claims have been accepted
that they are most of them, you know, from countries that they
can't go back to. Well, again, the, the, the, the
point has been well made. If everyone who had a legitimate
claim to asylum because they were living in or seeking to
flee from a country where they had a well founded fear of
persecution came to the United Kingdom, we simply could not

(37:09):
accept them. And that's why I think that not
just the European Convention on Human Rights, but some of the
refugee conventions that we entered into in the immediate
aftermath of the Second World War absolutely needed to be
revisited because the the scale of population movement that

(37:29):
would be visited on Britain or on other European countries is
unsustainable. So the European Convention
should go, you think? I I personally think that
there's no benefit for Britain remaining in the ECHR.
No benefit at all? No, because Kemi Bednock doesn't

(37:49):
think that, does she? She she's conducting an
exercise. And she was your protege at one
point. Well, I do think well, I, I, I
think I completely understand that's journalistic shorthand
for we work together. You pushed her to be older.
No, nobody pushes Kemi now. The The thing is that she is
nobody's protege and she quite rightly because she's hoping to

(38:13):
be Prime Minister. If she were here, we'd make the
point that you can't just wish to be like that.
There are very, very difficult issues, including the
interaction between the ECHR andthe Belfast Agreement.
But I, I think that in the same way as it's important for

(38:35):
politicians to be directly accountable for some of the
economic decisions that they made, simply saying to the
country, we can't do that because of the ECHR is
fundamentally pushing, placing strain on democracy, which leads
to people saying, well, if, if, if that's the situation, let's

(38:56):
burn the whole system down. The system has to show that it
can adapt, change and evolve or it comes under strain because
it's so brittle. Do you think it's possible we
are seeing the, you know, the end or the, you know, a long
intermission for the Conservative Party?

(39:16):
You know, if things carry on as they are and reform continues to
sweep everyone aside, is this a major moment in the history of
British politics? I think it's literally
impossible to predict because you have a four, potentially
five party system. With the emergence of the Jeremy

(39:39):
Corbyn's or a Sultana movement and indeed the existence of the
Green Party and the potentially incredibly charismatic
leadership of Zack Polanski of the Greens, you have a situation
where the traditional expectations that you might have
and even a 2 or a three party system are thrown into a greater
degree of doubt. So I think it is just impossible

(40:01):
to know. It is entirely possible.
People might think this is unlikely, but it's entirely
possible that you could have theConservatives on 30% at the next
election and securing A majoritybecause of the fractured nature
of the landscape. I mean, people look at the
current Conservative Party and you could easily build a case to
say this is Michael Gove pullingthe strings.

(40:22):
You have Kenny Bade knock at thetop who you were a fan of.
Henry Newman's now her chief of staff.
He was your spad. Francis Mord is back sort of in
some sort of role. You were part of that whole sort
of the machines of government thing.
Are you? Are you sort of, are you pulling
the strings in the background? Are you, are you advising them?
Are you talking to them? Are you the the during the time

(40:45):
that I was in in government, particularly towards the end,
one of the caricatures that was drawn was that I was some sort
of Uber Machiavel or Tory Mandelson.
You'd like to be, wouldn't. You.
No, no, I actually think it's unfair to Peter Mandelson as
well. But inevitably you have friends

(41:07):
and acquaintances who are there in politics, who are who's
career in politics continues after you.
But no, the couture was generated by people who just
happened to disagree with some of the things I believed in.
But might you go back? I mean, is, is your, is your

(41:28):
time trying to change the world over and are you enjoying
journalism too much or, or couldyou be, could you go back if
they said come back and help? I, I love journalism and writing
and I've, I've got no intention of going back into politics per
SE. The, the, if I thought that

(41:48):
there was something that I coulddo in areas that I care about,
whether that was education or the environment or criminal
justice where I could add value,then I'd, I, I, I wouldn't
necessarily say no, But politicstakes a lot out of you.

(42:08):
And I don't think being involvedin, you know, political office
again would be a good thing. One of the things your ex-wife
Sarah said to us when she was here was that you weren't very
good at being your authentic self as a politician.
That's one of the reasons why, you know, you divide people.
Some people think you're great, a lot of people don't.

(42:30):
An awful lot of people. And you know what?
To what extent you think that's true, but you know, you're maybe
you're not a very good politician.
Maybe if more people knew my authentic self, maybe even more
people would dislike me. Let's say you know, all
politicians to an extent put putarmour on.

(42:51):
One of the books that's most fascinating about politics is
Tony Blair's memoir The Journey.You don't necessarily need to
agree with his politics to find it absorbing and and honest.
And he describes the situation in his final term post 2005,
where he would somehow feel thathe was floating above this
figure called Tony Blair and looked down.
And there was him, the individual and then the figure

(43:12):
who was seen as Blair, you know,be liar, the architect of the
Iraq catastrophe or or whatever it might be.
If you're in politics for a while, then even if you're not a
principal player and not Prime Minister, but you're around
because, you know, then people form a view.
And I think it's the case almostinevitably for almost all people

(43:36):
in politics. There will be a disjuncture
between the armour that they have to put on for political
combat and the person that you see when they take the armour
off. And do you?
Do you find it difficult? Hurtful.
I think I used to, but I think that I'm obviously I'm out of it
now, but but again, you. Were you prickly about it?

(43:57):
Defensive. You grow used to it.
So of course it's the case that criticism of whatever kind or
things going wrong or adverse arks can have a lowering and
dispiriting effect on you. And there were certain,
definitely certain moments when I felt profoundly down about
things. But over time, you are it.

(44:19):
It either overwhelms you and youquit, or you develop a a thicker
skin. And developing A thicker skin is
not always a good thing in everyarea because it it can sometimes
mean that you develop that that drive and that ability to focus

(44:40):
on the work in hand. But that may mean that others
don't get the attention or care that they deserve.
And, and I suppose sometimes yougo on the attack verbally in a
way that, you know, in a calmer moment you might, you might not
wish to. Yeah.
I mean, do you know, do you regret some of the sort of more
aggressive? I'm trying to think I'm sure
what. Statements you may have made or.

(45:01):
I'm sure there must be some, buteither the reality or the manner
of. But do you think you did that?
I mean, whether you can think ofan example or not, I suppose, do
you? Does politics force you into a
personality? Yes, it does.
That means you you go on the attack in a way that you
probably don't really believe. I remember early on, just after
David Cameron had become Prime Minister and I was part of the

(45:23):
team that was helping him to prepare for Prime Minister's
Question Time, I said, you know,maybe we shouldn't take such an
aggressive approach. You know, maybe the right thing
to do is to, you know, to lower the temperature and turn it more
into a conversation and people will look at the Conservative
Party again. David is exactly the sort of
person who thrives in a conversational environment.
And George Osborne looked at me as though I was mad.

(45:45):
And he said, you don't understand.
Prime Minister's Question Time is gladiator.
It is kill or be killed. If you go in there and try to
start a conversation, you will end up as Rd. kill and that will
demoralise your side. That will lead to the others
being able to do what they want in every realm that they want.

(46:07):
You have an obligation to be your side's champion in that
environment. Now, Prime Minister's Question
Time is of course the most gladiatorial aspect of politics.
Almost everyone would rather that politics could be more
conversational or more consensual at least some of the
time. But it's in the nature of

(46:29):
politics, you know, everywhere that there is an element of a
competition and it has an adversarial quality.
You know, it's, it's, it might be nicer if everything were
more. I have to use the word

(46:49):
gentlemanly because that's gendered language.
If everything were more civilized.
But that's the nature of politics.
I mean, is that also then the thing that explains your, your,
your world view, your foreign affairs view?
Because you, you are, you've always been a very well right
wing is a difficult way to express it.
But no, no, no, you, you were one of the last people to defend

(47:11):
the, the Iraq war when Labour MPs wouldn't.
You are out there now, again, defending Israel and taking the
Israeli government, lying on things when very, very few
people will, even in the Conservative Party.
Is that really just about strength and about presenting
strength in the world, that that's the most important thing?
No. So there are two things.

(47:34):
The first admissible when it comes to my instinct is I have a
natural tendency when I see a cause which I think is right,
which doesn't have representation, to want to make
the argument for it. So there are, you know, both.
But these were not sort of, you know, the the poor minority.
Well, no. Arguments they, they were, they
were the things that were being done.
No, no. And are being done now in Israel

(47:56):
and, and you know, they don't need you to look after, you
know, to, to come to their defence.
I will. This is so the thing.
How many people are making our case at the moment that is
supportive of Israel? I mean, and how many people
were, you know, making a case that was in any way sympathetic

(48:16):
to Tony Blair's reasoning over Iraq?
I mean, my view in Iraq has changed of time.
But, but you are absolutely right that I was very
sympathetic to the Blair case, as I am now very sympathetic to
the position in which Israel finds itself so and there aren't
many. People to talk to.
Those views, but but the the broader point about strength,
it's not that I'm a worshipper of strength in, in, in, in

(48:40):
geopolitics. Quite the opposite.
It's because I recognise in the realm of international affairs
there are so many actors that are prepared to behave amorally
that I think it's important to be aware of of that dynamic.

(49:01):
So I, I, I won't rehearse all ofthe arguments now because people
can hear them elsewhere and I will make them elsewhere.
But I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of
how Hamas choose to operate and the constrained nature of the
decisions that Israel has. So I'm more than happy to go on

(49:24):
any platform in order to to run through those arguments and to
have people. Let, let's not run through it,
but let, but let me just ask youone thing about the current
conflict, which is people are obviously horrified by the
images of dead children, starving children right now.
And, and your response when challenged about these things

(49:46):
tends to be, well, blame Hamas, which is what the Israeli
government says. Yes, When you look at those
images, how what's your human reaction to them given a lot of
them are the result of Israeli bullets and Israeli blockade?
Well, I believe that the suffering of the people of Gaza
is due overwhelmingly to the actions of Hamas.

(50:09):
No, I know that's what you thinkintellectually, but I'm saying
emotionally. How do you respond to what's
going on in terms of the killing?
I think that it's horrendous that the people of Gaza and
indeed so many people in the Middle East, so many people in
the world live under regimes that are so scornful of human

(50:31):
life and don't believe in the importance of individual dignity
or who don't care about the people who they exercise power
over. And there is a world of
difference between Israel, whichis a rule bound diplomacy in
Israel, which is a country that believes in the worth of every

(50:53):
human life, and Hamas, which is a death cult.
Let's just briefly talk about Donald Trump then, because
you've met him, you've interviewed him, Yes.
Do you think he's a threat to democracy?
I don't think he's instinctivelya Democrat, but I think American
democracy is robust enough to deal with him.

(51:13):
Right. I mean, do you think he's
shifting the way democracy operates in America?
I think his autocratic tendencies he winning out in
some ways. He's naturally autocratic and
imperious, but then so were though he was a much more noble
figure. FDR so was at different times,

(51:36):
Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson.
It doesn't worry even that he isthat way.
Well, the type of conservative Iam would mean that the type of
American president that I would like to see is a classic old
school Republican. So I would feel far happier if
there were a Bush or a Reagan inthe White House than a Trump.

(51:59):
And. What and what about his attacks
on the media, given you're you're back in the journalism
class? So I think again, you know, with
Trump, the easiest thing in the world is to use language as some
do. And I know that you haven't like

(52:19):
fascist, that's not the case. So Trump is someone who who
would want to operate without any constraint, without any
constraint on his appetites or his power.
The American Constitution does place constraints and we've seen
that through the way in which the courts operate, the way in
which he's had to negotiate withCongress and so on.
His attitude towards the press is the attitude that he has in
so many other areas of someone who will throw his significant

(52:41):
weight around. But it's also the case that the
media in the United States has, you know, for the most part
demonstrated a pretty robust response unit.
Well, some, some of them have definitely buckled.
The one who hasn't is a man. You also know very well Rupert
Murdoch. Yes, quite.
So so in this battle between Trump and Murdoch, who do you

(53:03):
think is going to buckle in the end?
I don't think Rupert Murdoch is ever going to buckle.
He will always, in my experience, back his editors and
their judgement. And you know, the The thing is
that I, I would never want to speak for or written to
otherwise Rupert Murdoch's reaction.
But in my experience, there are many politicians that that he

(53:26):
can admire or like the cut of the jib of.
But he's a newspaper man first and his editor, who Eva Tucker
at the Wall Street Journal is a very good journalist, will have
taken formidable care before publishing anything.
And so he will back. Out is, is this a rich man's

(53:48):
game kind of thing or is it, Is it a real argument, do you
think? You know, a lot of people sort
of look at sort of the way Trumpand Murdoch and these sort of
hugely wealthy, powerful people interact with each other.
I think that it's like a game ofchess to them, or a, you know,
or something less complex. I, I don't, I don't, I think
that at different times, again, I, I often use, and I have in

(54:11):
this conversation historical comparisons because I think that
human nature is revealed by looking back at how in the past
similar situations have arisen. And so in the past, you've had
press proprietors, whether it's Northcliff and Rothermere here
in the past or William Randolph Hearst in America, who have

(54:36):
strong characters who've become commercially successful.
They've become commercially successful because they
understand that in journalism, you will only succeed if you
provide people with the revelation of that which has
been covered up and an attitude that makes them feel that when
they tune into you, your platform or pick up your title,

(54:58):
that they've got someone speaking for them.
And when you have people who have wealth, who acquire
newspapers, who don't have that spirit that either their wealth
goes down the drain or the the title disappears.
Similarly, you can have people with significant wealth who
enter politics unless they have a connection with an

(55:21):
understanding with popular concern, then that wealth
doesn't matter because you can't.
You can certainly for a while purchase political relevance,
but what you can't do is buy political success.
Finally, I just wanted to come back to the question of Brexit

(55:43):
because Sarah Vine, who I mentioned a couple of times, one
of the things she said in in ourinterview was that had it not be
for Brexit, you might well have still been married.
I mean, I asked you earlier, wasBrexit worth it given the
economic damage? Was Brexit worth it given the

(56:03):
personal damage? Well, I don't know if I hadn't
got involved, what would have been the consequences for me,
for Sarah and for our family. And in a way I suspect that the
the fateful step was earlier. So one of the points that is

(56:29):
you. Don't think it was Brexit.
Well, one of the points that is made by those who work with
addicts and those who work with people who are in the grip of
alcoholism is that it's not the 8th drink that makes you drunk,
it's the first that once you've taken that first sip, then if if
you have an addictive personality, then everything

(56:49):
follows. And so in that sense, I suspect
that the strains on our marriagewere not as a result of Brexit,
they were as a result of my decision to enter politics in
the 1st place and things flowed from that.
And if I'd never been a politician, might we still be
married? I just don't know.
But I think if you isolate one individual moment, that helps

(57:15):
you realise that at that point of the narrative, that's the,
the hinge moment. But actually it may be that
they, you know, the first step was taken a lot.
It was politics. Earlier if if there was a
factor, then it was politics rather than any individual
moment, yes. And, and, and so given what you

(57:37):
said, I'm sorry to push on this because it's personal, but I
kind of feel I have to, given what she said, if it was
politics and a career in politics, that was your your
first love. Do you regret?
That's all. I think there are many, many,
many more people listening and watching who probably regret
that I ever had anything to do with politics then.

(58:01):
And so it's it is literally and I it's a very fair and
appropriate question. It is impossible for me to know
or answer. But maybe the world might have
been better if, instead of trying to change it, I had
concentrated on, after university, becoming a history

(58:22):
teacher. Michael Gove, Lord Gove, thank
you very much indeed. Thanks for sharing your ways to
change the world. And that's it for this episode.
You can watch all of these interviews on the Channel 4 News
YouTube channel. Until next time, bye bye.