Michael Gove: I’m more right-wing than Farage, Reform are just a protest party

0:03The Telegraph.

0:10He says reform isn't even conservative. In this explosive interview with Michael Gove, he claims to be more right-wing than Nigel Farage and unleashes on Starmer's hapless government. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Tim Stanley. And me, Camilla Tominey.

0:36Michael Gove joins us in the studio. We would have listed your former ministerial roles. There's just too many of them. So let's just call you the editor of The Spectator and be done and say that you're an ex and current Tory. You're never an ex-Tory, are you?

0:47Michael Gove: No, no, no, no. Nobody leaves the KGB. No, indeed so. And actually, let's talk about... Unless you're Rob Jenrick. Well, did you hear this week that, not the KGB, but equivalently that Sir Ed Davey had a tap on the shoulder, he claimed, in the 1980s at university because somebody wanted him to join MI6. Can you imagine? That's either a lie. Same happened to me. Did it? Yes. Tell us everything, Michael. I can't. I signed the Official Secrets Act. When was this and how did it play out? So I applied to join the Foreign Office after I was sacked as a reporter at the Press and Journal in Aberdeen. And I was interviewed, but in the end, it wasn't taken forward.

1:26Were you quite excited about the prospect?

1:28Michael Gove: It was fascinating. I can't see any more. Honestly. Well, I'll tell you what you can talk to us about. Your political editor, Tim Shipman's brilliant scoop about the unseen Mandelson messages that have gone to Darren Jones. I have been enjoying this. Honestly, having interviewed Darren Jones, who was the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, now the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, obfuscate and roll his eyes and at times patronise me on my GB News show. It is interesting to find out that he has secretly been toadying up to Mandelson and that you've got the receipts. Yes. Well, in his brilliant column this week, Tim has the he spilled the tea because he has the whole detail of the tender and intimate email exchanges.

2:11Michael Gove: Forgive me, WhatsApp exchanges between Darren Jones, the chief secretary of the prime minister and Peter Mandelson, in which Darren Jones expresses his tearful sadness at Peter Mandelson's departure, also speculates on which job he should go for in a reshuffle, saying that he really wants the business secretary's job. The then business secretary, of course, was Johnny Reynolds. He's quite sort of scathing about Johnny Reynolds. Bit inconvenient now because Johnny Reynolds is the chief whip. And he's also, perhaps most damaging of all, a bit sniffy about his then boss, Rachel Reeves, approach towards the economy.

2:46Michael Gove: Now, he might have thought that these tender billets would remain encased in Peter Mandelson's telephone because his own messages were disappearing. But nothing escapes Tim Shipman. I was just going to probe whether Michael Gove was jumping up and down when we had the lockdown files and all of those WhatsApp messages between you and your colleagues, including Matt Hancock. I hope we haven't got double standards. No. You were quite happy for us to have your messages. It would have been, I think, problematic at the time because the business of government deserves to be conducted at the time with a measure of confidence.

3:23Michael Gove: But when the lockdown files were published, there was absolutely nothing that appeared of which I was ashamed. The day before Mandelson was formally appointed in 2024, Jones texted him, you'll be brilliant in challenging circumstances. And after many years of discussions, we get to work side by side. I really look forward to that. And then, on the very day that he was sacked as ambassador, Jones wrote, You've been doing such a great job and you worked wonders with Trump. I'm so sorry about today. It's sweet, isn't it? It's lovely. It is. Again, lest I be accused of hypocrisy, I was one of those people who actually thought that the appointment of Mandelson was a gamble, but a shrewd one.

4:04Michael Gove: So any schadenfreude that I might feel is tempered by that. So I think it's only right that I say that. I think, however embarrassing those messages are, actually the most toxic for Darren Jones is the doubt that he cast on Rachel Reeve's growth strategy. And we know that Wes Streeting did the same in his messages with Peter Mandelson. He said regarding the growth plans, quote, it doesn't fill you with confidence. And then here's one which is almost on a par with Pat McFadden saying, every meeting I have is just a discussion of who do we tax in order to pay more benefits. When Peter Mandelson criticized Jonathan Reynolds, who was then business secretary and his special advisors and his industrial policy advisors, Jones wrote, I lost faith in his spads when, on a call about Port Talbot, they repeatedly took a different position to us in HMT.

5:06This is the critical bit because that's what the unions want. Oh, dear. Doesn't Darren Jones think that he could position himself as the so-called centrist candidate in any future leadership? Well, he is criticising. Not without the support of the unions. The influence of the unions. Well, I know, but, you know, my frustration with all this, Michael, and I did have a conversation with the Blue Labour MP about this in the week, actually, at an event, is that you've got all of these closet right-leaning Labour ministers who in private are saying one thing, and yet publicly to me, to you, to Tim, to others, are pretending that everything's rosy in the Garden of Eden.

5:45Now, you've been in this situation. You've had to defend the indefensible, but this is getting preposterous now.

5:51Michael Gove: Yes. We now know that there is almost no one in the government who believes that Rachel Reeves has had a growth strategy before the general election, we were told that everything that Labour did would be sublimated to driving economic growth. There was no need to raise taxes because growth would provide all of the benefits that Labour were boasting about. We now know that there is no one left who believes in it. There are probably more Zoroastrians in the Labour government than there are people who believe in Rachel Reeves' growth strategy. And therefore, it emphasises the fact that at the moment we have a vacuum of a government, a nullity.

6:34To be fair to Reeves-y, Peter Mandelson is a Blairite and on the right of the party. So anyone he chats to is likely to be right-wing.

6:42Michael Gove: Anyone he chats to intimately, yeah. And they are likely to say things that he'll want to hear. But the pattern is emerging. It's not just on this occasion, Jones complaining about the unions. is not just Pat McFadden complaining about benefits. Wes Streeting, who, of course, the ever ambitious Wes, actually released his own messages. Yes. He said there is no real growth strategy. Precisely. So the pattern is everyone is privately saying there is no strategy. That's true. And in a way, without wanting in any way to undermine the fascinating nature of these revelations, their impact, while significant, of course, comes in the wake of Tony Blair's essay of the other week.

7:22Michael Gove: And that was a coruscating takedown of the Labour government's failures. And now there are lots of reasons why Daily Tea listeners will think that Tony Blair is discredited and this pack of Labour politicians are useless. But nevertheless, it's clear that for a significant section of the country, one of the reasons why they voted Labour in 2024 was not just to get rid of the Tories, But they also thought that Labour's, you know, if not quite sort of new Labour-ish, if not quite sort of moderate, at least it's sort of pretty business friendly and sensible. But the reality of the Labour government that we've had is that it has been soft left.

8:02Michael Gove: Yes. Not Benite, not Corbynite, but left. And as you quite rightly point out, as indeed Darren Jones pointed out, inclined to follow what the unions want, inclined to regulate and tax rather than to deregulate and to liberate. And, you know, that is one of the reasons for the economic torpor the country faces. Isn't another reason for the economic torpor and indeed the rise of these other alternatives to the Conservatives the fact that unfortunately your old chump Cameron and co doubled down on Blairism that they saw themselves as the heir to Blair. I mean, I don't want to kind of relitigate 14 years of conservative rule.

8:41But I'm just I'm mentioning this because I've just written this piece about, you know, could Rupert Lowe and Nigel Farage and to a lesser extent, maybe Kemi Badeknot just put the egos aside. And OK, not necessarily form a coalition now, but stop cannibalizing each other and letting the left just get through. And this could happen in Makerfield. So it's frustrating to our audience. This whole thing is frustrating. And many of the people in the comments are saying, well, I'm sorry, but, you know, why do you think we're not trusting the Conservatives? And they have a very, very, very good reason for saying that.

9:15Michael Gove: Yeah. Well, I think the answer to uniting the right is for people to vote Conservative, not for the other parties. Well, you would say that, Michael. I would. What do you say to The Telegraph, reader, listener, viewer who says, no, I can't trust you. I can't trust you because you broke all of your promises. You talk about deregulation and lower taxes. You didn't do that yourselves. All the policing stuff that we're now tearing our hair out following Henry Novak's death, it happened under you. I know the police did it to themselves, but you as the government could have done much more to step in and say, you're not doing that.

9:46Can I just say, we're not trying to gang up, but we do need to address it.

9:49Michael Gove: Well, point one, I think that people tend to accentuate the negative, not the positive in the Conservative record, and there is a lot that the Conservatives did. David Cameron significantly reduced the size of the state and lowered taxes while he was prime minister alongside George Osborne. And then in a huge swathe of areas from education to welfare to the environment, we pursued distinctively conservative policies. And indeed, on crime as well, we also managed to ensure that we had a focus on dealing with the worst offences. We didn't do everything that we should have done, but politics is about trade-offs.

10:29Michael Gove: And the problem with reform and particularly with Restore is they are not serious policy outfits. Well, quite a lot of the reform policy agenda seems to ape what Badenock has announced. It's the other way around. Well, OK, so there's crossover between both sides' policies, but you're saying because reform aren't conservative, they can't be trusted. You're both arguing for the same things on immigration. Well, it seems to me that there are lots of people that I like who are and are fond of who vote reform or who are tempted to support reform or who are actually in reform. But reform is not a proper right wing party.

11:09Michael Gove: It is an inchoate populist movement that is attempting to harness understandable anger and rage. It doesn't have a serious or coherent policy platform. As for Restore, Restore is an organisation composed of jokes. Well, is it? Rupert Lowe would contest that. Well, he's a joke. OK, well, how about this then, Michael? If politics is about trade-offs, when we look to Makerfield, why doesn't Restore and indeed the Conservatives stand back and at least allow the person on the right that has got a hope of beating Burnham in this seat to storm ahead and try and win it for the sake of the future of the country, because we know how this is going to play out.

11:52If Burnham wins Makerfield, he has a path to Downing Street. He's most likely to succeed in that path. What will then happen is we'll have more socialism. We could have something worse than what we've already got. So for the sake of the country, the Conservatism Restore should just sit this one out, let Farage win it, and then see what happens.

12:12Michael Gove: No, because Nigel Farage is not a Conservative and reform are not a right-wing party. Well, Nigel Farage is right wing, isn't he? He's more right wing than you are, frankly. Well, I would contest that. Really? Yes. I mean, I think Nigel Farage was very keen at one stage on keeping the, or he was on the same side as Labour, actually, on welfare reform. He wanted to ensure that the two child benefit cap was ditched. And Robert Jenrick's talked about, you can't possibly say, Michael Gove, that you are more right wing. I'm more conservative than Nigel Farage. I'm a proper Tory. He is not. Look, I've got a lot of respect and indeed affection for Nigel Farage.

12:52Michael Gove: But the conservatives must stop thinking that reform is somehow a conservative party that is composed of genuine conservatives who just happen to find themselves wearing a slightly different color of rosette. Reform is not a conservative party. It is a populist party. If you listen to what Zia Youssef has said, he is admirably clear. Zia wants to destroy the Conservative Party, not encourage it to be better, not amalgamate with it, not ginger it up so that it becomes a bit more Tory and a bit more reliable. Destroy. And I think that we should be clear about that. Now, if that is what you want, if you want the evisceration of the Conservative Party, go ahead and vote reform.

13:37But if you actually want a future right-wing government

13:42Michael Gove: in this country, a conservative government in this country, then you should be voting conservative. There is no question but that Kemi Beidanoch is the single most impressive party leader in the country at the moment. OK, but hang on a minute. Aren't most reformers, to be fair, hoping that voting for Nigel Farage leads to the evisceration of the Labour Party? Isn't that the truth of this? I appreciate the use of wing of Tory haters, which is weird because it's self-hatred. Last time I checked, this guy, Nigel Farage, Richard Tice, Lee Anderson, Sarah Pochin, Andrea Jenkins, Nadine Doris. They were all with your lot.

14:18So these people are formatories. But come on. In most cases, not at all. The Telegraph readers who are voting for reform are doing it out of desperation because they don't want four more years of Labour or, God forbid, something even worse, some Lib Lab Green with a side order of Gaza independence, mush of progressive alliances.

14:36Michael Gove: All they need to do is to straightforwardly vote Conservative. But the polling doesn't back up what you're saying. But that's a chicken and egg argument on your part, which is that people are voting reform because other people are voting reform because not enough people are voting Conservative. Were enough people to vote Conservative, then there would be no need even to have this conversation. If Tim had wheels, he'd be a bicycle. I mean, come. Well, quite. And indeed, if reform had policies, then we could make a judgment about whether or not they were genuinely conservative. But at the moment, what they are is a well-run, well-funded protest party with some, as I say, delightful people in them.

15:21Michael Gove: I bear them absolutely no personal animus, but it is clear that they are not saying anything which is distinctive, transformative, deeply thought through. And the contrast with what Kemi Beidnock has both achieved in government and is saying now, Just look this week at the different ways in which reform and the Conservatives have responded to the tragedy of Henry Novak. I think that there's been a broad recognition. And Nigel Farage, again, he's got every right to speak out and he raises some important points. So no one should attempt to silence him. But Kemi Beidnogh's response was head and shoulders ahead.

16:06Michael Gove: And also it was Kemi Beidnog who was calling out and analyzing the problems with critical race theory, with DEI, in detail years before some of these other people appeared on the scene. So everyone in politics pays attention to polls. Not enough attention is paid to policy. And that is the reason why I think that, you know, for all of the fierce energy behind them, that reform are not yet, they may at some point, but are not yet anywhere near being able to govern as effectively as a Kemi-Badnoch-led Conservative Party could. I think it's important not to conflate conservatism and the Conservative Party.

16:54Michael Gove: Yeah, that's true. The Conservative Party contains conservatives who do conservative things, but sometimes does things which are not very conservative. And in the case of the last government, there's quite a long list on immigration or even on trans issues and things like that. Or banning smoking generationally, for instance. Well, forcing people to learn maths. but I think the argument of someone like Rob Jenner would be my problem was I found that actually being in the conservative party was an impediment to me doing conservatism because I had to share that party with so many people who weren't philosophically conservatives but were more sort of lib demi that it became that the party became an imperfect vehicle for getting what I want done so what I have done this is Rob speaking not me what I have done is I have left the Conservative Party and join reform.

17:41And I know reform is to some extent an absolute beginner. It's only about four or five years old. But what I'm trying to do is turn that into a vehicle for what I concluded the Conservative Party couldn't do.

17:54Michael Gove: Who were these Lib Dems who were somehow stopping Rob doing conservative things? Who were the Lib Dems who stopped me doing conservative things. Rishi Sunak, a Lib Dem. Liz Truss, well, she was a Lib Dem, actually, but many years ago. People who were vehemently trying to block Brexit, you could describe as closet Lib Dems. People like Caroline Noakes, who swallowed hook, line and sinker, all of the trans women are women nonsense. Caroline is a lovely person, but the idea that Caroline Noakes, a delightful person though she is, was somehow exercising hegemonic, intellectual and ideological control over the Conservative Party is for the birds.

18:32Michael Gove: I agree, Michael. This idea that the last Conservative government or indeed the current Conservative Party is somehow riddled with Lib Dems is a trope that we see repeated in social media by individuals who pay absolutely no detailed attention either to what was done in government or to the personnel concerned. Fair enough. It is a standard reform-adjacent attack that is flung that I find risible. OK, but Caroline Noakes stopped Robert Jenrick doing what he wanted to do. I mean, Caroline would love to think that she was as powerful as that. OK, so that's their crude way of describing it, because they would.

19:15But if you take, for instance, Brexit, you can't deny the difficulties the Tory party had with getting Brexit over the line, such that it had to change its leader, hold a general election, because it could not persuade its MPs to see through an act, either whether you regard Theresa May's deal as good or bad. The point is the party was so divided over that that it wasted time and it had to have a general election. It basically had to flush out some members and bring in some new ones, the new blue-wool Tories who were considerably more right-wing and populist. Many of them, of course, have now joined the Reform Party.

19:55That's my point. There were some people who joined change. I'm going to give you another couple of examples of people who are considered Lib Dems in Tory clothing. David Gork, who once had an argument with me saying that I was too right-wing, and I pointed out that there was only one of us that was a Tory MP. And second of all, somebody like Gavin Barwell. These people were lefties in right-wing clothing, Michael.

20:17Michael Gove: Well, first of all, neither David nor... Gavin stopped being an MP in 2017. David stopped being an MP in 2019. Both of them are figures who are on the right, but they're certainly anti-Brexit. I'll grant you that. But, you know, I speak as someone who helped to lead the Brexit campaign. So nobody, you know, whatever criticisms can rightly be thrown at me, Nobody can say that there was any lack of art on my part in trying to get us to leave the European Union. And as you point out, Theresa May's deal, people can argue about how imperfect it was. But it was the case that the prime minister at that point was trying to force us to leave.

21:10Michael Gove: Yes, it required Boris to become prime minister in order to secure that exit. But the Conservative Party under Boris, the Conservative Party from 2019 onwards, was united in making sure that we could leave the European Union. And Gavin and David are both people I like. I'd like them to vote conservative in the future. I'd like all sorts of people who are not currently voting conservative to vote conservative in the future. but the idea that David or Gavin were exercising some sort of Svengali-like influence on the Conservative government when Boris was Prime Minister or when Liz was or indeed when Rishi was, again, it's ahistorical.

21:53Okay, but if that is the case, then why has Kemi felt it's necessary to state that people who want to become MPs in the future must make it clear that they are conservatives, doesn't that implicitly suggest that part of the problem has been that the party has been full of people who are not philosophically attuned to conservatism rather than the more sort of cultural historical phenomenon of the conservative party?

22:21Michael Gove: Yeah, I think she's absolutely right in that regard. But more of the recent departures have been from people who were elected under a conservative banner and who've then left to join reform. Again, you know, I've got nothing against them doing that and I rather admire what some of them did in Parliament and in Government. But it seems to me that they are joining a movement that is not conservative. Now, again... Some of them would agree with that, by the way. You speak to Matt Goodwin and he will say, no, we're not. Precisely. And that's fair enough. And that is entirely fair enough. So my point is not to say that there is no argument for voting reform.

23:06Michael Gove: If it is the case that you want, as Matt Goodwin and Zia Yusuf say, a genuine radical change, and you can argue it's right-wing radicalism. That is fair. Then that is what reform are offering. But they are not a – they're not a Tory party. They're not a conservative party. There is a distinction and that distinction goes to, you know, a philosophy and policy. So that is one. And then the other area, I think, is just the quality of analysis that is being brought to how we change the country and the way that we do so. But Daily Telegraph readers may well find, others may find, that by the time of the general election, that reform does have a policy programme that is detailed and persuasive, but it's not there yet.

23:58Coming up, regrets, Tim. Gove claims he has none, but does he rue the day he claimed we'd had enough of experts?

24:17Clear up a row for us, can you? Your old mucker, Robert Jenrick, was accused by the Conservatives of blocking aircon being installed in new builds when we were all sweltering in the heatwave recently. And then he hit back and said, no, it wasn't me, I didn't do this. It was Michael Gove. Was it you?

24:37Michael Gove: Well, the original policy was conceived under Robert and it was consulted on under Robert. Then he left. The junior housing minister was someone who'd been appointed when Robert was there, who signed it off. But I was the Secretary of State at the time. Then a number of people pointed out to me some of the flaws with that policy after it had been effectively rubber stamped when I was Secretary of State. And at the time of the general election, just before the general election, I had ordered that the entire policy be scrapped. one of the people, not the only person, but one of the people who pointed out the flaws in the policy to me was Kemi Bednogh.

25:15Michael Gove: She explained why she felt that this was not just bad in terms of air con, but bad in terms of a number of other ways in which we might want to build more homes and build better homes. So it is correct that Rob wasn't there when the policy was finally introduced, but it was his policy. Now, it's perfectly open to him to say, I've changed my mind and I don't think it was a good idea. Because to be fair, I wasn't paying attention initially. And it was only when it was made clear to me what some of the consequences of the policy would be that I thought we should ditch it altogether. So I hope that that is an objective analysis, which allows Rob to, if he wants to, say that he was an error.

26:01I feel we have ganged up on you a little bit. So I want to compliment an answer you gave on Question Time about Brexit. Oh, thank you. Which I think you gave a very good defence of Brexit. It's happened since and the fact that we have grown comparatively the same as Europe and seem to have damaged many areas of economic performance. Can you clear up for us, was the bus wrong?

26:23Michael Gove: No, certainly not. So, actually... The figure on the bus was, remind me... £350 million a week. ...will be spent once we leave the EU. On the NHS. We spent far more than that on the NHS. I mean, some might argue that that was a Tory failure to spend so much on the NHS. I don't, as it happens. Was it a dividend or were you just going to upspending in the NHS anyway? Because it's politically popular. Because people's complaint is the implication it would come out of the money that went to the EU. Yes, well, no, if anything, actually, We gave rather more than£350 million a week to the EU. And we've ended up giving far, far more than£350 million a week to the NHS.

27:02Michael Gove: We're coming up to the Brexit anniversary. There'll be all sorts of relitigation of the arguments. But as I think your question's implied, it was the right decision. There is more that we need to do to make sure that the additional freedoms that Brexit offers are taken advantage of. But how can it be wrong to want the British people to have more control over their lives and destinies? And let's have a little bit more fun. Yes. I feel like I'm now reverting to bully Mr Gove. But no. YouGov. Oh, yes. Ten years on, have the public still had enough of experts? The pollster asks. Ten years ago, Michael Gove uttered the now infamous words, people of this country have had enough of experts.

27:48The then Justice Secretary faced unfair ridicule for these remarks, says YouGov, with most opponents declining to quote the words that followed, which were with organisations from acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong. I think actually on reflection, you were talking about bodies like the IMF and others. Yes. Kind of sowing Project Fear without backing it up with too much evidence. You know, the economy is going to fall off a cliff. Thousands of people are going to leave the country. in the case of Barry Gardner, Barry, if Brexit happens, there will no longer be a sheep in the fields of England, which was something you said to me on the way back from question time.

28:29Now, do you regret saying that?

28:31Michael Gove: No. OK. Which experts do you most trust now, Michael Gove? And I will give you the public's reaction to whether or not they do trust experts and which ones. Which experts do you trust? Most? Yes. Tim Stanley. Charles Moore, Camilla Tominey. Oh, thank you. What amazes me is that according to polling, historians are trusted by 77 % of the public. They don't know how the sausage is made. No. Well, if the historian is Tim Stanley, if it is Tom Holland, if it is Dominic Sandbrook, yes. If it's someone like Willie Dalrymple, oh, my God. We have, top of the list, 86 % of Britain say they trust nurses most.

29:16Closely followed by...

29:16Michael Gove: Good news for Nadine Doris. Isn't it just? Closely followed by doctors on 83%. Specifically, one's own GP, 76%. Lucky if you can get into Zedan. I was going to say. As you said, Tim. They haven't met one. That's the problem. No, quite. Historians on 77%. Scientists on 76%. Further behind, oh, we love this one, weather forecasters. They're believed by 62 % of people. Do you note the complete and utter absence of both politicians in the trust rankings? And journalists. And journalists. And you're both, Michael. So honestly. Yes, I know. But I'm also history as well. Yeah, that's true. So I trust that.

29:53Michael Gove: You can get it back. But have the public really just given up on us? Not on experts, but on us? No, I think that the key thing, I think, is that the danger is when people say that because they've got expertise in one area, that that entitles them to be taken more seriously than the public in other areas. So, yeah, of course, when it comes to economics, it's interesting to listen to a Harvard economist and their theorizing. But just because you won a Nobel Prize in economics, that doesn't mean that you're going to apply common sense solutions elsewhere. You know, some of the smartest people in America academically, with whom I might disagree, you know, people like Larry Summers and Noam Chomsky found themselves around Jeffrey Epstein's dinner table.

30:38Michael Gove: So it can often be the case that people who are very bright and learned in one area can lack common sense in another. Can we do a quick fire round with you of predictions before you go, Michael? Who's going to win Makerfield? Andy Burnham. Is Keir Starmer going to be Prime Minister by Christmas? No. Who is going to be Prime Minister? Andy Burnham. If there isn't a Labour Prime Minister in future, who's going to be the next non-Labour Prime Minister? Kemi Badenor. Is there anything else we can get Michael to predict? England will win the World Cup. Thank you. Will we rejoin the EU? No. Will you go back into politics?

31:14Michael Gove: No. OK, that's it then. I think we're done. I think we're done. I should add that I want Scotland to win the World Cup, but even hopeful as I am, I think that that is a vain, vain fantasy. And to think, with your Aberdeen roots, we haven't even got on to... The Aberdeen South by-election? No, I was actually going to say the camper van. Well I'm more than happy if you want to come back and we can discuss Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell maybe with the great Alan Cochran Yes than whom there is no shrewder observer of Scottish I was going to say our chief Scottish commentator Alan Cochran who has seen it all I know the two hairdryers they're still baffling me two hairdryers for a bald man Tim there we are I mean I could expect you to get it I mean have you got a Dyson hairdryer?

32:00Well it's to it's to create a draft so you can hold them both up at the same time Or maybe he just was one of those people like Wayne Rooney who needs to listen to white noise at night. Possibly to have drowned out Jimmy Cranky on the other side of the bed. Michael Gove, it's been a pleasure. You don't think we've ganged up on you, do you?

32:17Michael Gove: No, I love it. We're on the same side here. I am a huge Daily Tea fan. Thank you very much. And likewise with Quite Right, your podcast with Madeline Grant, who we love, formerly of this parish. Thank you very much. See you again soon.

32:34Thank you.