With her resignation as Leader of the Conservative Party, Theresa May is now a caretaker Prime Minister. Unkind folks have suggested that Larry the 10 Downing Street cat could do a better job.
The backbench 1922 Committee will open nominations for an MP to succeed her on Monday. There are already a number of declared runners, although some may drop out with rule changes designed to cut the field down quickly. For the Conservative members in the country, it looks like the choice could come down to the [past] cocaine user and the guy who could not sniff a line of coke.
On Saturday, the Daily Mail published its first extracts from a book about one of the candidates, Michael Gove, and an interview with him. The two were not unconnected. Part of the book revealed that Gove had taken cocaine while a journalist before he became an MP. The paper had offered him a response and the interview resulted.
The book also revealed that when he was exploring his earlier bid for Tory leadership, he had question practice sessions when the question of drug use had come up. He had there admitted using cocaine but was advised that, if asked, he should use a diversion. Just responde that candidate’s private lives should remain private. Unfortunately the book presumably had fairly strong evidence so a fudge was out. He chose to come clean.
Last night Mr Gove told the Mail he had taken drugs about 20 years ago when he worked as a journalist and before he was married. He became an MP in 2005 and entered government as education secretary in 2010.
‘The book is correct,’ he said. ‘I did take drugs. It is something I deeply regret. Drugs damage lives. They are dangerous and it was a mistake.’
Now it’s quite likely that the Mail bought the book in the hopes of currying favour with the front runner Boris Johnson. Which got people digging out this clip from the BBC’s comedy news panel show “Have I Got News for You”. Boris was the guest questioner.
So he tried a bit but he sneezed. I am not sure if that actually helps Boris. It’s another in his line of incompetencies. Some might think that if he had learned to snort coke properly, he might have achieved something constuctive during his times as Mayor of London and Foreign Secretary [yes, he’s a friend of Donald]. I could not possibly comment.
Gove has been on a damage limitation exercise doing the rounds of the Sunday morning politics shows. He did not seem to get much understanding from his fellow journalists. He had his “answer-everything difficult” lines off pat.
A Times article Mr Gove wrote in 1999 - around the time he admits having taken the drug - has been republished. In it he criticised "middle class professionals" who took drugs - leading to headlines calling him a "hypocrite". But speaking on Marr on Sunday morning, Mr Gove denied that amounted to hypocrisy.
"I think anyone can read the article and make their own minds up," he said. "The point that I made in the article is that if any of us lapse sometimes from standards that we uphold, that is human.
"The thing to do is not necessarily then to say that the standards should be lowered. It should be to reflect on the lapse and to seek to do better in the future."
I am starting to think that the candidates are trying to appeal to the youth wing of the Tory party (the under-55 year olds). Other candidates playing the “I was cool and took drugs when I was young but know better now” card. Andrea Leadsom “smoked weed at university but have not touched it since”. Dominic Raab has admitted to smoking canabis and said of Gove, “It was a long time ago, people will judge it as it is but I do believe in a second chance society”.
Weed and Columbian marching powder are a bit mundane so I award the prizes for the “coolest drug story” competition to, in second place, current Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt who told the Times that he had drunk a cannabis lassi (a yoghurt based drink) while backpacking in India. First prize has to go to Rory Stewart.
Tory leadership hopeful Rory Stewart has apologised for smoking opium in Iran while travelling in the region more than a decade ago.
The international development secretary admitted that he had sampled the class A drug at a wedding but it had “no effect” on him because he was walking up to 30 miles a day.
Mr Stewart, a former tutor to Princes William and Harry, has travelled extensively in the Middle East and wrote a successful book on his solo walk across Afghanistan in 2002.
Super story — no lingering suspicion about readily available powders and herbs — but at the same time reminding his potential voters about his foreign and diplomatic experience.
Judging from Gove’s comments, I think we can discount the theory that this is all to soften up opinion so the Tories can legalise drugs so everyone is stoned or coked to the eyeballs before the next General election. On the other hand, a couple of kilos of ecstacy might do the DUP a bit of good!