Michael Gove

Michael Gove (born August 26, 1967, Edinburgh, Scotland) is a Scottish-born journalist and politician who served as education secretary (2010–14) and lord chancellor and secretary of state for justice (2015–16) in the administration of Prime Minister David Cameron, as environment secretary (2017–19) under Theresa May, and as levelling up secretary (2021–22) under Boris Johnson.

Gove was adopted and brought up in Aberdeen, in northern Scotland. He later studied English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and was elected president of the Oxford Union debating society. After graduating in 1988, he applied to work for the Conservative Research Department but was unsuccessful and turned to newspaper journalism. He returned to Aberdeen to work on the daily Press and Journal; as a member of the National Union of Journalists, he took part in a four-month strike when that paper’s management sought to derecognize the union, bypassing it in negotiating pay and conditions.

In 1996 Gove joined The Times newspaper in London as a columnist and leader (editorial) writer. That gave him a platform for his right-of-centre, independent-minded views. Although generally critical of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labour government, he strongly backed Blair’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003. In London Gove became close friends with Cameron, who urged him to enter Conservative Party politics. Gove was selected as the Conservative candidate to fight the Surrey Heath constituency south of London and was elected MP in the 2005 general election. Later the same year, when Cameron stood in the election for party leader, Gove was one of his most active supporters.

After having been voted leader in December 2005, Cameron rewarded Gove, who had served as MP for just seven months, by appointing him shadow housing minister. In July 2007 Cameron promoted Gove to the full shadow cabinet, as shadow education secretary. In his new role, Gove set out plans for state schools to apply to be independent “academies,” no longer controlled by local government. He also promoted new groups—which could comprise parents, charities, or private companies—to establish new academies. When the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition was formed after the May 2010 general election with Cameron as prime minister, Gove was named education secretary. The Academies Act in July 2010 was one of the first of the new government’s bills to reach the statute book. The act, however, proved controversial, as did his curriculum reforms, which some argued were too rigorous and unrealistic; for instance, five-year-olds were to study fractions. Gove’s relationship with teachers was particularly contentious, and in 2013 several teachers unions passed motions of no confidence concerning his policies.

Following poor polling results for the Conservatives in 2014, Prime Minister Cameron reshuffled his ministerial cabinet, changing Gove’s position to that of chief whip (a move widely regarded as a demotion). After the Conservatives won the 2015 general election, Gove, who had been reelected to the House of Commons, was appointed lord chancellor and secretary of state for justice in Cameron’s new majority government. Gove butted heads with the prime minister, however, as one of the leading spokespeople (along with Boris Johnson) for the “Leave” movement in the campaign for the referendum in June 2016 in which voters decided to remove the United Kingdom from the European Union (commonly known as Brexit); Cameron was the “Remain” side’s most prominent advocate. In the wake of the vote, Cameron announced his intention to resign, and Johnson looked to become his likely successor. When Gove removed his crucial support from Johnson and decided to become a candidate himself, Johnson withdrew from the race. Gove then came up short in the subsequent five-candidate race to lead the party, and, when the winner of the contest, Theresa May, became prime minister in July 2016, she replaced Gove as justice minister with Liz Truss.

After the Conservatives lost their legislative majority in the snap election May called for June 2017, the chastened prime minister undertook a cabinet reshuffle in which she appointed Gove secretary of the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Because of Gove’s history of opposition to legislation aimed at addressing climate change, environmentalists were outraged by the appointment. In 2019 May announced that she was stepping down after several attempts to pass a Brexit deal failed. Gove launched another bid to become the party’s leader but lost in a crowded contest that saw Johnson emerge victorious. Gove’s tenure as environment secretary ended in July 2019, and the following year he became minister of the Cabinet Office. He held that post until 2021, when he was named secretary of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. In addition, Gove also became minister for intergovernmental relations. In July 2022 Gove joined other senior figures in the Conservative Party in pressuring the embattled scandal-ridden Johnson to resign as prime minister. Johnson responded by dismissing his erstwhile ally from the cabinet.