Michael Gove

Michael Gove

Michael Gove is editor of The Spectator.

Labour’s heavies make the Sopranos look like the Vienna Boys’ Choir

From our UK edition

Watching Labour’s 2005 election campaign unfold, I’m afraid words fail me. The great Democrat governor of New York Mario Cuomo once remarked that ‘we campaign in poetry but we govern in prose’. And even though I struggle to find the language to do justice to Labour’s campaign, one poet does capture their approach perfectly: Rudyard

Power to the people

From our UK edition

As a journalist I got used to asking questions. As an apprentice politician I’ve had to get used to answering them. And that has meant learning all over again that the simplest questions to ask are the trickiest to answer. Most of my acquaintances have been extraordinarily encouraging about my decision to relinquish a journalistic

Terminal depression

From our UK edition

In all its long history, the parliamentary Tory party has never been so depressed. If a doctor were to observe its current behaviour, he would put the patient on suicide watch. When I spoke to Conservative MPs this week it was hard to find any spark of optimism, breath of hope or relish for the

It’s still the ‘nasty party’

From our UK edition

A melancholy anniversary recently passed virtually unnoticed: it is now more than a decade since the Conservative party fell behind in the polls. Never has a major opposition party been so unpopular, with so many, for so long. If Conservatives are ever to govern again, they must do three things. They have honestly to appreciate

The Maggie, Tony and Iain show

From our UK edition

Why didn’t the Tories invite Pete Waterman to speak at their conference? The guru behind Kylie Minogue who has become a familiar television face as a judge on ITV’s Pop Idol certainly wouldn’t have felt out of place. He’s used to helping nervous unknowns who want to make it big. And his experience sitting beside