If there were any ambitious journalists on the right who still thought that the best route to the top runs through the newsroom, it may be time for them to start looking for a safe seat. Consider the evidence. George Osborne’s stint at the Evening Standard didn’t do much for the editorial reputation of former ministers; the Conservatives have since been comprehensively told where to go by the electorate. It doesn’t matter. Whether as columnists or podcasters, radio hosts or GB News fulminators, Tory grandees who believe that the public just wants to hear more from them continue to blight the media.
The latest is Michael Gove, who has been appointed editor of the Spectator by the magazine’s new owner, the GB News and UnHerd boss, Paul Marshall. Gove will take over on 8 October, just in time to direct the Spectator’s coverage of the business end of the Conservative leadership contest, and perhaps to endorse whichever of the final four candidates – Robert Jenrick, Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat – he favours when they set out their stalls at party conference next week.
