160. Michael Gove: Education, Brexit, and Trump (Part 2)

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30:06Fees and terms and conditions apply. Can I ask a sort of mean question? Of course. Is there a possibility that there's a problem here of slight intellectual self-confidence and an absence of understanding that there are areas you know less about than others and that maybe that's the same with any minister who gets appointed to any job well no but they don't generally actually michael's the only one who really enjoyed getting into other people's departments rather than thinking i don't actually know much about that and i think there's an interesting you you are almost the sort of perfect strangiest of scott the sort of english amateur who thinks that on the basis of the Brinant Oxford English degree, you can jump in without spending the hard yards and being deeply immersed in the subject.

30:58There are two things. The first is overall, and I'm sure Alice will laugh, there's generally a lack of expertise in policy formulation. That is absolutely correct. But it is not the job of a Secretary of State to be an absolute expert, either in their area, Or in other areas, it is their job to exercise political judgment. And that means having ideally an appetite for knowing more and more about their area, but being able to ask tough questions and to have the interests of the citizen and the country in mind. So, you know, I don't think there will be, whether they were successful or unsuccessful, chances of the exchequer.

31:46Chances of the exchequer who will have known as much as the 364 economists who wrote to Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s saying that her policy was wrong. Or the ones who wrote to the public and the media and you and Boris Johnson and everybody else and said that Brexit was going to be a disaster. No, but one of the things, and I know that my Tory friends hate me for this. I'm a big fan of Tony Blair. And you might think, Alistair, that it's for all the wrong reasons. As am I. You might think, in my case, it's for all the wrong reasons. It's because you're essentially, basically, a sort of right-wing Blairite, aren't you?

32:17You're instinctively not really a Tory. In fact, when you say you agree with Rupert Murdoch, there was a sort of slight delight in all these wet grandees and all this stuff. You agree with them on that too, don't you? You're not really a Tory. I will. The two things I'd say, I do believe that I am a proper Tory. But the thing that I would say, the reason I invoked Tony Blair is, I think he was now standing prime minister, but he, when it came to home affairs and crime, was operating on the basis of, yes, being a lawyer, but an employment lawyer, having a broad idea of how the criminal justice system worked, but not a detailed one.

32:53but he had very good instincts on issues like antisocial behavior. He went to the trouble of talking to the police on the front line. So he wasn't an expert. He wasn't a Helena Kennedy or master of the roles, but he was very good in that area. So I think that you can be a very good secretary of state or politician without having the deep expertise that some have, but you need to have those people around you. Then on the question, am I a Tory? Absolutely. Before you get on to when you're a Tory, Listen, Rory, stop pushing me on Brexit. The Tory is so interesting. It's a good transition to Brexit.

33:28Good transition to Brexit. Because I think in an odd way, there's something here that I'd want you to play devil's advocate with yourself. Because I think it's your Achilles heel. I've got many. What made you actually a really good minister is that you did really master your brief. You were incredibly patient and thoughtful about gathering information. But it was always political. Maybe you were never as much an expert as you would have liked, but you really knew that stuff. Every time I spoke to you about your own departments, you have a quick mind, a retentive memory, you got into the detail, you briefed yourself well, you read profoundly.

34:04But there's another part of you that cannot quite resist, whether it's on Israel, whether it's on plastic bags, or whether it's actually on Brexit, suddenly thinking, and I'm going have equally firm views on that forgetting that actually your real strengths and where you do best is when you know stuff. Well, very possibly, but I think it is part of the reason we have a cabinet is that secretaries of state and ministers should not be in their own silos. There are some things that should legitimately be discussed. Do you disagree with any of that? I still think there's a question in all of us of knowing where our strengths and weaknesses lie and what we know more about and what we know less about.

34:46Which brings us to Brexit. Over to you. Would you have got to the position that you got to on Brexit without Cummings? Yes. When did you decide that you were not just a lever, but somebody who was going to become a big part of that campaign? And do you to this day think it was the right thing to do? I do think it was that Brexit was the right decision. And I was, I think Rory knows, sceptical about having a referendum. I didn't think it was necessarily a very good idea. And some of that was selfish because I didn't necessarily want to be in a position where I knew were very probably on a different side.

35:26And did you try and persuade Cameron and, because Osborne was trying to persuade him, did you try and persuade him as well? I did. I let him know what I thought about it. obviously George was a much was much closer to David and a much more trusted advisor and much more aligned with him in so many other areas but it was certainly the case that I said that I thought it would be a mistake and David thought that I would bury my feelings about it and you know he famously I think Rory's remarked on this so you know there are two types of people in politics team players and wankers and so his natural view was if you weren't on the team then you know you were on the side of the Onanists.

36:07And I remember with my ex-wife and my kids staying with my mum in the February half term, just as Cameron's negotiation with the EU was reaching its culmination. And being, I mean, nobody cares about my feelings, but I was in agonies about what to do because I knew that it would be difficult either way. But there were a variety to people I talked to about it. And in a nutshell, the basic view was,

36:41you've got to do what you think is right because you'll curse yourself if at that point you don't stand up for what you believe. But you've done things, everybody in cabinet has done things that they don't 100 % go with. Might you have found yourself able to go with Cameron and Osborne? or did you feel it very viscerally that you believed in leaving the European Union and therefore there's no way you could? And why didn't they know that? Well, I think that I wasn't perhaps as vehement enough early enough about my concerns with them, though they did know. You know, it is the case that... They knew your views, but they didn't know...

37:21That I would take that view. And it's all because, as we've just discovered with plastic bags in Israel, it's not as if you're shy with your views, right? I mean, you're very, very clear with your views. So isn't it a bit odd that with Brexit, given that you have the strongest views of any human being and are not shy to share that they were not aware that you were an ardent Brexiteer? Oh, no, no, they definitely knew that. And there is a link, funnily enough, to right-runs. So often did I object to things that were in the ministerial books from other government departments that were actually ministers faithfully asking for permission to pass EU law into British law, that I was called in by the cabinet secretary to be told off.

38:02and I was told you can't do this because this is EU law and by definition it automatically becomes British law. And I said, well, why is it in my box? Why are you treating us like idiots, inviting us to agree to something that's already been agreed? So, you know, that is a minor radicalising factor. And I did make it clear at certain points, but I think that both David and George thought, look, Michael, come down. And there are other folk who are quite eurosceptic, who, in order to stick with the team, will suppress their doubts and so on. So I think it was perfectly legit for them to think he'll swallow it.

38:43And one reason they really thought is that you were not passionately in favour of a referendum. I mean, if you really, really wanted to leave the European Union, you would have been passionately in favour of a referendum. And you weren't. No. So why weren't you passionately in favour of a referendum if you really wanted to leave the European Union? Part of it was selfish. How could you have got there without a referendum? Yeah. in that I didn't want, you know, I felt it would be a distraction from what it was that we were really all working together to achieve. And I also felt that a referendum was not a substitute for a proper policy.

39:12And I think that the, as it happens, and I don't mean to criticise David unduly, I think that the actual negotiating exercise that he undertook was misconceived, and it wouldn't have found Britain in the right resting place with Europe at the end. but to fast forward both you and I already found ourselves defending a settlement with Europe that neither of us thought was perfect but both of us thought was better than the alternatives because both of us were probably the last two people standing who still think that Theresa May's deal was a good deal so there are moments when in politics you think you can and should compromise and then other moments and a referendum is a binary one where you've got to decide So it's given to folk if they're not MPs or not in the cabinet, they can sort of say, I'm not sure.

40:02But you had to decide. And at that point, I thought, you know, it's one of those gun to the head moments. It's one of those, as interviewers do on programmes, yes or no answer, Alistair. OK. Right. Before we get forward to Theresa May's deal and all that. So was David wrong to be as angry and upset with you as he was, sufficient even with the passage of time to writing his memoirs to call you mendacious? No, I think I completely understand. So I don't think it was – I don't think I was mendacious, but I can completely understand why he felt angry and upset. I mean, he probably knew Johnson would do that, didn't he?

40:45I think he knew that there was always a risk. Yeah, definitely. So I've tried to often, I haven't always succeeded, think what it must be like for someone else on the other side of a political argument. That doesn't mean necessarily that I pull my punches, but it means I can appreciate why they hold their position. And I don't make any criticism of David Cameron's handling of this on a personal basis. I think that he behaved throughout towards people as well as any politician could ever. Was the campaign mendacious? Both campaigns were. Speak for the campaign that you were part of. Well, both campaigns had to simplify in order to get their message across.

41:29So both campaigns, the Remain campaign and the prospect of this emergency or crisis budget immediately afterwards was confected. And I think on the leave side, one of the correct challenges is we didn't spell out, I think, sufficiently clearly all the tradeoffs involved. And Michael, one thing that I felt looking back on it is that maybe not you, but certainly people like John Redwood and Acacia Dominic Cummings and certainly Boris and others were very optimistic in 2016 about a sort of globalized world. And their sort of story was where Europe is struggling financially and look at China's going gangbusters and maybe if we just open up and trade with the rest of the world.

42:20And that world's changed. Yes. you know, protectionism, tariffs. We'd now be very, very reluctant to be profoundly reliant on free trade with Russia, China, this, that and the other. And the arguments in terms of trade and national security for being close to Europe feel stronger than they did in those days. Do you acknowledge that, that the world has changed in 10 years? The world has definitely changed, but I think it actually makes sovereign control more relevant and more important. And my own view I've written about this is that trade formed a very small part of the campaign. It was not a motivating factor for most voters and not for me.

43:06But then afterwards, it loomed much larger in people's minds. And during the period of uncertainty about what benefits Brexit might bring, people pointed to trade deals and our friend Liz Truss was racking them up. That was not the aim and not the metric by which it should be judged. They were rollovers. Well, precisely. So in some cases, they were enhanced. And in some cases, actually, with Australia and New Zealand, while they were quite extensive trade deals, I'm not sure they necessarily worked in the interests of British agriculture. But my point is that I am not, this is one of the reasons I'm probably a Tory, not a liberal.

43:44I am not an ideological free trader. I am not an unapologetic advocate of globalization. I think that the most important thing is to make sure that you have accountable political leadership within a shared political community that can be nimble certainly in response to global challenges, but ultimately that's the most important thing. And sorry, Alison, I keep interrupting and I promise to be quiet, but you've got me going on sovereignty. Strategic autonomy and sovereignty, particularly at the moment for Britain, we are dealing with Trump who is weaponizing all vulnerabilities. We haven't got full strategic autonomy and defense, security, and AI is terrifying because all these big models are being built in the US.

44:31And if they turn out to be the core of all our economic life or our security or our public services, we're dependent on this guy. So, you know, my instinct is Britain should be leaning into Europe. We should be working with Europe to develop at least some resilience, at least hedge ourselves, have some strategic autonomy from the US. But that isn't the position in which we've been driven to. We're incredibly dependent. I don't feel we're sovereign. Well, we have choices. And some of those choices that we've made, for example, on AI have allowed us outside the European Union to take a position on leadership on AI safety and on AI regulation, which actually helps British business.

45:12But more broadly, which Europe? My challenge to you, Rory, is that the Europe that you would like to see is very different from the Europe that we have. And that actually, things like Mario Draghi's report remind us that Europe is an innovation sinkhole and that the political leadership that the EU should be providing on a variety of issues isn't there. Partly because we've left. Well, that is an arguable point. We've weakened Europe's political leadership. Arguably. Am I right, though, when you talk about you think it was still the right decision? Yes. Is that because ultimately for you, it was really just about sovereignty?

46:00That is at the heart of it. And if you have to pay a little bit of a price for that in some other areas, which we could list for hours, then that's kind of fine. I would, yes. It's the only intellectually defensible position. But where I don't think it takes you is to say that it's been of economic, social, cultural, political benefit to the United Kingdom. I think it can be of economic benefit. I certainly don't think it's been. We've had to bear the economic cost that many people say. But that's a different argument. I think it can be of economic benefit. And I think it has been of political benefit.

46:36Where do you want the relationship with Europe to go now? So my feeling about the current Labour government is that they know it's been a bit of a dog's dinner. They got themselves into a place where they don't want to sort of revisit the fundamental debate. So they are actually doing quite a lot of things incrementally, which are trying to undo some of the damage. Where do you want our relationship with Europe to be? And how do you set it against what Rory has identified as this very new United States of America leadership? Well, I think we should have, to kind of phrase it, it's a cliche, a special relationship with Europe.

47:09I think I can understand why the Labour government wants to move towards what's called dynamic alignment on certain regulations in order to make certain small businesses, particularly in the food and drink sector. Do you disagree with that? I do. Though I don't think it's, I personally wouldn't do it because I think that there is a, the future risks outweigh the current benefits. But I don't think it's crazoidal. I just disagree with it. But more broadly, we don't know, you know, in three years time, we could have President Gretchen Whitmer, we could have a Democrat in the White House. We don't know that the trajectory that Trump has set and that Vance would want to take America in will necessarily be the one that exists in the future.

47:56but I think that there are both personal and institutional relationships that an independent Britain should have much as, and I know it's an overdone comparison, but Australia or Canada or New Zealand. You've just sort of gone to the sort of post-Trump period following what might happen in the next election, none of which we don't know, but you're right, it's sort of very unpredictable. What do you think is going to happen in the next election in the UK? uh i really don't know because notwithstanding rory's very well made point about the confidence with which i express my opinions even though i'm ignorant um the problem is there are just more plates spinning so you know you're quite good at sort of predicting things what what's your gut feel about where our politics is i think it's very messy and where might it be in three years time.

48:48Do you think Farage could be prime minister? He could be, yes. How do you feel about that? Well, I'd rather that it was Kami Baitnog. Would you rather Keir Starmer than Nigel Farage? I'd rather Nigel Farage than Keir Starmer. Would you? Yes. Because? I don't wish Keir Starmer any ill, but I think he's a terrible prime minister. There are individual Labour ministers whom I admire. People who read The Spectator will know that. It only embarrasses them, I'm sure. There are people like Shabana Mahmood and West Streeting. And as it happens, Douglas Alexander, who I think are really good. But I just think that I feel sorry now for Keir Starmer.

49:31Sympathy is never a good thing in politics. No. Okay, what would you do if you Labour Party to prevent Nigel Farage becoming Prime Minister? I would demonstrate and articulate a program of reform oriented towards working people who've been overlooked and undervalued for too long. Which is what they say they're doing. Yes. But, you know, just a couple of cases in point. There's a photo from, I think, before Christmas of Mr. Fink, one of the leading figures from a major private equity firm in Downing Street being fated by Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves. If I'd had him in Downing Street, I would have said to him, you're the representative of private equity.

50:15Private equity has been responsible for ripping off this country. Look at what happened to Thameswater with Macquarie. You and your people are the unacceptable face of capitalism. We welcome private investment into this country. But the way in which you deliberately drive down investment, drive up the profits that you make in order to make this company valued in a particular way and then sell it and use carried interest to make yourselves rich. That's offensive. Get out of here. And at the same time, I would also say if the ECHR or any international convention prevents me deciding who's in and who's out of this country as prime minister, I am leaving it.

50:52Neither the wealthy who are exploiting British workers nor the crooks who are exploiting our borders will actually get in the way of me standing up for working people. Would you say that to the Macquarie people? Yes. Have you said that to the Macquarie people? Yes. So you're saying that it's not just what you think Labour should say, it's what you also believe. Yes. So as Rory says, you're not really a Tory. No, I am because I precisely am because it's your neoliberals that are uncritical worshippers of business. It's your Tories who believe in responsible capitalism. And, you know, if you go back to the 19th century, it was the Cobdens and the Brights and the Gladstones that were all on the side of the factory owners.

51:41And it was the Shaftesbury's and the Israelis and the Salisbury's that wanted to make sure that those who worked in the factories had a fair wage, limited hours and decent homes. Do you think Farage believes in responsible capitalism? I don't know. but you'd rather have him as prime minister than kirsten without knowing that um there are i will first of all i think that there are some areas where i do agree with farage and secondly i also think um that he is absolutely not a racist and one of the charges that's flung at him is that he uh either out of prejudice or out of cynicism plays to the politics of race and identity.

52:23I don't think that. I do worry, however, that there is so little behind him that in reform, in that broad movement, it's just, you know, a ragtag array of pirates. And what this country needs is not pirates in charge. It needs a proper navy, as it were, to adopt the metaphor, where everyone is sailing together in the national interest and proud to be under one flag. Michael, so much. As usual, you've opened up so many areas. I was very tempted to point out that the notion that the way to really get British growth going and get investment into the United Kingdom and reassure the markets is for Keir Starmer to just throw Larry Fink out of the streets while screaming at him.

53:13And I also suggest that had you won that leadership contest that we were together. You would not have thrown Larry Fink on the street. I refer you to the speech that I gave to Water UK when I was Environment Secretary. We don't quite have enough time for that, but let me finish then for the final thing. Let's finish with which department do you think you were best in, and which one do you think you were worst in, and what does that tell us about your personality, strengths, weaknesses, and skills as a minister? I think funnily enough, the one where I achieved the most per day in office was environment.

53:50And I think the one where I achieved the least was leveling up. And tell us why. I think the problem with leveling up is I started under one Prime Minister Boris, then there was an interregnum, then under Rishi, there was both discontinuity, but also when I returned, because there'd been a leadership election in which both the candidates had made promises about restricting house building in Tory areas and so on, it became progressively more difficult. And also the original impetus for leveling up had come from Boris. And when we returned, while Rishi was very, very interested in the policy detail, he wasn't as convinced as Boris had been about the necessity of some of those big changes and devolution and so on.

54:38So we were running out of gas in a number of ways. In environment, the reason I mention it is probably because it doesn't get often mentioned because lots of other Tories wouldn't like to think that we did things that were very green and lots of Greens would hate to think that things had moved in a positive environmental direction under a Tory. My last round of questions, Michael, trying to bring some of this stuff together. So you have had several ministerial positions and you do have this reputation that Rory alluded to at the start of part one, that you were seen as one of the kind of deliverers inside a conservative government.

55:29But you do also have this reputation for lack of trustworthiness. Yes. So both Cameron feels that you knifed him at one point, Johnson feels you knifed him at another point. And then Theresa May decided not to be knifed and sort of told you to go off and spend time and learn about the Conservative Party. And then you've come back now, you're still a player, but you're now back in journalism. Yeah. Are you trustworthy? I believe so, but I think I'm an awkward and difficult bugger um and rory's brought that out and you've brought that at last um and uh i think that um i mentioned you know the theresa thing um uh i was um and and rory were you know our friends were similarly perplexed about our willingness to support theresa's deal a lot of rory's friends thought this is ridiculous you know uh this is a messy compromise that gives too much to the Brexiteers, a lot of my friends thought the mirror opposite, but for different reasons.

56:36And I thought, look, Teresa brought me back from the wilderness. She's given me a job I enjoy doing where I think I'm making a difference. I owe her loyalty. Similarly, Boris brought me back and I thought he's given me this responsibility and I formed a view of him in the past, but he has given me this chance. I'll stick with him. I think the other thing is that when I disagree often with people's positions um i can be quite pungent in disagreement but often because i i will have appeared conflict diverse beforehand because i don't even though i enjoy taking positions i don't always seek them it may seem odd don't always seek them out people are slightly surprised but they would think well he seemed so calm and reasonable now and you know he was bruce banner a minute ago and now he's the hulk um what's going on here um and so i think that is a personality quirk um which i think how does that work actually it is a very interesting line in your personality how does that work i don't know i think i i think i should probably be in the psychiatrist chair i think have you been in a psychiatrist chair i have talked to uh uh psychiatrists in the past yes uh and what are the big things that they dig into well i think it's your childhood yes parentage yes but i think i don't know um what a definitive explanation is But I think it is observably true that you would not automatically guess from a lot of the time that there are certain things about which I feel passionately.

58:08But I would hope, and again, it's not for me to speak for them, that I would hope that most of my friends who really know me would say, yes, he's a bit odd and quirky and so on. But once you get to know him, you can broadly predict where he's going to fall on most things. Do you mind if I ask you why you did see a psychiatrist? Why you made that decision? I probably better not say at this stage, but we can maybe pick it up later on. OK. And my final, final, final question, honestly, is to tell me about Paul Marshall. Yes. We don't know that much about him. He's now your boss. He is my boss. He is the UN suspectator and GB News.

58:49What's his goal in life? I know this sounds terrible, but to do good. Oh, a right-wing media bogle. What did you do good? Well, he wasn't always right-wing. I know he wasn't. He was a Lib Dem. He was a Lib Dem. No, the thing is that he's one of the most generous philanthropists in the UK. He certainly has, you know, firm political views. Some people won't like the political views, even as they admire the generosity. I don't think you can understand Paul without reflecting on his faith. And his faith guides him to believe that if you have talents, both in the literal sense of abilities, but also in the biblical sense of wealth, you should use it for good.

59:34And he believes that you should help children with their education. He was involved in helping development work in the third world. But he also believes that some of the people who've been in power in this country have become estranged from what he considers to be the principles that made this country successful in the past. And above all, including Christianity, not so much that more democratic principles. But more than that, what he really likes, and I suppose there are certain parallels here with me, is that he really likes the clash of ideas. So his first intervention in the media, Unheard, was specifically designed to give a greater house room and space to what he considered to be the contrary opinion that was intellectually coherent, but not necessarily always respectable.

1:00:31and what he believes he's providing with GB News is, in broadcast terms, a complement to what he believes, and I agree with him, is the broadly sort of liberal-ish leftish tinge that you have with Channel 4 News, Sky now, oddly, and the BBC. And I'm not a BBC basher, but I think it's just better to acknowledge that the BBC overall, While it's brilliant, it does trend ever so slightly to the left. GB News emphatically does not. And so Paul would see that as a corrective to a particular current. Would he see Fox News in the American context as a force for good? I've never asked him direct. And I think he would probably say that the context for American media is very different.

1:01:23Is Trump a force for good? I think he believes that... I'm asking your view now. Me? Is Trump a force for good? I think he's like a storm or a typhoon in that he's a force for nature, which brings some good things and some bad things. And I've got into trouble in the past when I've tried to characterize Trump because he so strongly polarizes people. But when I've been critical of him, you know, folk on the right have called me a squish and a salad. And then when I've praised him, people have said, you know, you are a you know you're a stooge of a wannabe fascist what i've tried to do with trump is to recognize that he's a unique phenomenon and try to make judgments about where i think he's been uh good or bad without being in a position to make a definitive moral judgment about him well i think that's a wonderful line on which to close i think it sums up so much for our conversation.

1:02:24Michael, thank you for your time. That was very generous of you. No, thank you. Thanks, Alistair. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

1:02:32Can I just say before I get into things - You need to apologise, aren't you? I thought, no, I thought that last answer actually sums him up. It is extraordinary. He equivocated on Trump. His natural instinct is to be violently pro or against things. I mean, there's often very little gray. It's very black and white. You heard that on the Israel thing. Hear that if he and I were getting going on some other issues too. But as soon as you got onto Trump, you see the other side of Michael, which is the very equivocation. Some people think he's a proto-fascist. Some people think he's a hero. I'm the person in the center ground.

1:03:11And of course, that's again what he was presenting on Theresa May's Brexit deal. And that relates to my bigger point which is his extraordinary lurches from the incredible politeness to the confrontation which i found with these ministerial writer rounds he'd be very polite to me then he'd confront me then i'd try to confront him in the minister and then we'd be back to awkwardness and politeness again anyway over to you yeah i mean it was the only thing i think is fiona fiona's not going to be happy with me she did she spent several hours giving me and we didn't really drill him on education he dragged him off to bloody housing tell us con if you'd been given a cent what was the main point you wanted to land on where he went wrong on education and i've thought this ever since he was there that he's an incredibly clever political operator but the political operation took precedence over the actual delivery of outcomes that he now says existed which i don't think they did and what damage do you think he did in education well i think he really pissed off the teachers which you know and i can get why they can you know and all that thing about the blob and all that stuff which i don't and that's why i was interested to know whether that was him or that was cummings and the thing about i don't know if you remember the tory education thing but it was this vile social media stuff that was being put out effectively in his name and attacking people like fiona well not not fiona's i can't remember i'm sure she was but it was you know his head teachers it was people who didn't agree with him and and so forth no so i don't think that i think he's look he's a very charming very erudite very funny guy who's very good at talking the talk and if you And I think if you actually analyse what happened on his watch in education, I'm not convinced that it's a great success story that his supporters will say.

1:04:47But if you'd had longer on education, what do you think you would have got him to say? Well, you wouldn't because what happened and the reason I think probably the reason why you pulled us on to housing is it was because he can talk the hind legs off a donkey. He does have facts pouring out of his ears and he sort of tries to persuade you that the facts speak to the narrative he's already got, which is partly what politics is about. I thought what was interesting in part one was because I've said many times on the podcast, when Johnson and Gove were the sort of two of the drivers of that government, I don't think journalists do necessarily make good politicians because I think that it's always about the story.

1:05:25It's always about the headline. And that's part of what politics is. But when that's the driver of your politics, I think actually he's far more intellectually rounded than Johnson. And, you know, and I don't think we'd have had as an engaging a conversation with Boris Johnson about his political career. But I don't know. I think he's a fascinating character, really is. And the fact that he, you know, if you think about it, every single question we ask, whether you like the answer or you didn't, he sort of answered it pretty straight. And you got very annoyed with him because of the Israel Gaza stuff.

1:05:58But if you think about it, we were asking him questions and he was just answering them dead straight. Except, of course, the reason I was getting irritated is those have been his lines on it for a very long time. So I didn't feel he was actually talking to me. I felt he was reciting stuff that I had him say 10 years ago. You know, the beacon of democracy from here to there and all the stuff I've heard. Anyway, we're here in what was Paul Marshall's building. He reminded us of that. And that was another thing. I mean, I remember sitting at a dinner hosted by Paul Marshall in Paul Marshall's other building, right?

1:06:29This is the owner of GB News who he now works for, where Michael was laying into attacking dukes, landed estates, seemed pretty skeptical of the royal family, skeptical of the brigade of guards, all that stuff. And I said to him at the time, you're not a Tory, are you? And he said, no, I'm not a Tory. I'm a Whig. It's people like you who are Tories. And so that's another indication, right? So today he's a Tory. Today he's a Tory, right? Now, it depends what he means by a Tory. And is that because he thinks Paul Marshall wanted him not to be a Tory? Well, I think what he has in common with Paul Marshall and why they like each other, and it tells you a lot about the Lib Dems.

1:07:08Remember, the Lib Dems had in them Zach Polanski, now leader of the Greens, who's well off to the left of Jeremy Corbyn, and Liz Truss was a Lib Dem, right? They were both great. Calling for the abolition of the monarchy. Well out of the right, right? Taxation. And Paul Marshall now running GB News, they all come out of the Lib Dems. It tells you a lot about how broad that party is, right now what does paul marshall see in gove i think they both actually at some level really don't like the establishment i think gove although he flirted which murder says he doesn't as well yeah i think although he flirted with uh cameron and johnson and these people at oxford i think he probably did feel quite an outsider he has got quite a kind of revolutionary trotsky eye edge to him which is why he loves people like dominic cummings and he's got these visions of the world which I mean this Larry Fink thing I didn't want to dig into it it sounds great as a soundbite because it makes him sound kind of progressive left-wing radical it's complete insanity yeah it's pretty mad right pretty much this is the largest private investor just ahead of the budget you're saying to one of the biggest investors in the entire world you know with trillions under management yeah get the hell out of here yeah you know you're capitalists he wasn't very positive He's not talking about Keir Starmer, was he?

1:08:21No. And what does it tell you that the people he likes are people like Shyvana Mahmood? I mean, that's interesting too. What's he looking for in a minute? Who did you say? Shyvana. And Wes. Douglas and Wes. Yeah. He is a quirky character, that's for sure. I think people will enjoy listening to that. I could be wrong. Fiona won't. Yeah. She'll be crossing with me. It's my whole experience running against him in leadership. I mean, you talk about people were trying, but I mean - We didn't even talk about the leadership campaign. No, I mean, I should have got into it. this was the guy who famously, you know, in the middle of the leadership campaign, invited me around for a confidential conversation.

1:08:52And then stuffed you. And then stuffed me. So it's really, you know, this. But he was charming to you again today. Yeah. I mean, the charm thing is really, really interesting. I sometimes think that people think about me, you see, that I'm a bit of a bastard, really. But I'm actually a very nice guy. I think with Michael, the first impression is always he's an incredibly nice guy. And I think. And then he turns out. I don't want to become his psychologist, but I think it's partly a defense mechanism. He's one of the most interesting politicians in the modern era. Well, I'm very grateful he came on.

1:09:23He was very reluctant to come on. Yeah, I know. And as I say, I admire him immensely for a lot of what he did as a minister. And I still don't really understand him as a person. And I don't understand him any better at the end of two hours. And he did tell us he's seeing a psychiatrist. I remember once, was it somebody wrote, I think it was in The Guardian, The headline was, being Alastair Campbell's psychiatrist, that is some gig. I reckon it's the same with Michael Gove, but you, being Michael Gove's psychiatrist, that is some gig. Maybe he offered to come back in a few days to talk about it.

1:09:52Maybe that could be the next thing. Yeah, good. Yeah. Thank you, Alastair. See you. Bye-bye.

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