Philip Collins
(Picture: Daniel Hambury)Inside 10 Downing Street nothing is stirring. Boris Johnson has, in effect, checked out and the staff in the building are waiting for the next incumbent. We are in the midst of a leadership contest which, thought it has hardly seemed to start, appears destined never to end. Eventually, on September 5, it will but neither Liz Truss nor Rishi Sunak communicate much of a sense of purpose. Meanwhile, the only minister who ever really does anything has just announced that he has had enough.
Michael Gove announced over the weekend that he is going to leave politics. Mr Gove has encountered a few battles down the years, and he hardly endeared himself to bien-pensant Britain with his advocacy of Brexit, something he had thought consistently for 30 years. But it should be noted that Mr Gove’s departure is a blow. It is a blow for a government which has had, since Brexit, almost no purpose and it is a blow for the idea of levelling up, talked about incessantly by Mr Johnson, but only latterly given any form at all by Mr Gove’s White Paper.
