Might the fact that there has never been much love lost between Liz Truss and Michael Gove – his decision to back Kemi Badenoch in the leadership contest has hardly brought them any closer together – see the former levelling up secretary leave politics for a return to journalism?
Gove is telling friends he is keeping all his options open and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he ended up as editor of the Times – a job he had been linked to before Boris Johnson appointed him to his cabinet. Gove might as well cash in on all his toadying to the nonagenarian Rupert Murdoch while he still can.
Truss, the clear favourite to take over as prime minister, made her contempt for Gove clear three years ago in a speech at the London School of Economics when she said he was “full of hot air” as environment secretary.
Meanwhile, sources at the Daily Mail are intrigued by reports that Boris Johnson will join the paper as its new star columnist once he leaves No 10. “We’ve heard the rumours but nothing more,” says one. “But the office is delighted by the idea that he’ll be working alongside Sarah Vine, who was painted as a Lady Macbeth figure when her then-husband Gove torpedoed Johnson’s first leadership bid in 2016.”