Electoral Dysfunction Live: Gove reveals how he found out Sunak was calling an early election
The first live show of Sky’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast is taking place in London tonight, and former cabinet minister Michael Gove is the first guest joining Beth Rigby, Ruth Davidson, and Harriet Harman.
The Tory grandee gave up his seat of Surrey Heath at this general election (held now by the Lib Dems), and so he can speak more freely than any time in the last 19 years.
Our political editor Beth Rigby asked him about the day the election was called – and he has spilled all.
He told the podcast that there “were mounting rumours the day before” the election was called.
“Various meetings had been cancelled – I couldn’t quite believe it would be because we were going to call a general election. There were suggestions that there might be another reshuffle.”
But Mr Gove went on: “But I knew, not for certain, but I knew 99% when I got a call around lunchtime asking me to come in to see Rishi [Sunak] at 3.45pm before the cabinet that was occurring at 4.15pm.”
At that point, he knew “the rumours that had been gathering force throughout the day were almost certainly true”.
That meeting before cabinet, he revealed, was attended by then-chancellor Jeremy Hunt, then-deputy PM Oliver Dowden, then-Scottish secretary Alistair Jack, and then-defence secretary Grant Shapps.
Asked what his view of calling the election early was, Mr Gove made an illuminating comparison.
He said: “If a friend tells you that he’s getting married, and you think ‘oh my god, not him, not her’, but they already say ‘we’ve booked the church, we’d like you to be best man or be maid of honour’ – at that point, you feel you have got to smile and hope for the best, believe it will work out.”
Only Grant Shapps said it was not a good idea, but he expressed in a “very polite, very measured way”.
There was more disquiet in the main cabinet meeting with then-common sense minister Esther McVey and then-Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton-Harris saying it was not a good idea.
“The thing is with hindsight I think some of us were going to lose our seats, lots of us were going to lose our seats, whenever the election was called.
“And Grant [Shapps] being Grant, he will bounce back.”
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