The Spectator presents: Living with a Politician
Join Sarah Vine, (author of How Not to Be a Political Wife), with Michael Gove, Rachel Johnson (author of Rake's Progress, her own odyssey as a political candidate) and Hugo Swire (whose wife Sasha wrote the bestselling Diary of an MP's Wife) as they discuss the losses and laughter involved in being married to politics.
This event will be live from 7.00pm on Monday 30 June.
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The Independent
a day ago
- The Independent
Farage not ready to be PM, Gove says in withering assessment of Reform's election chances
Michael Gove has given a withering assessment of Nigel Farage's election chances, saying the Reform leader is not ready to be prime minister and – still won't be in four years' time. The senior Tory, a cabinet minister for many years during the Conservative government, praised the former Ukip leader, saying he admired 'his skills as a communicator'. But he said: 'I don't believe that he is a plausible prime minister '. He added: 'Because if at this stage you're saying that Reform should be the government - I know we're four years away – he doesn't have the team, or the policies or programme that would make me believe that he would govern effectively.' Mr Farage declared his party as the main opposition to Labour in May, after it won 676 seats and overall control of 10 councils at the local elections, which also saw the Tories lose 15 councils and 674 seats. But, in an upcoming interview with the Politics Inside Out podcast, with former Labour MPs Gloria de Piero and Jonathan Ashworth, Mr Gove said that Reform's success was 'not because they've developed a compelling story about how the country can be different'. It was because 'they're the repository of anger at the failure of the political classes to do what they said they would do'. He also revealed that Mr Farage had been 'personally grateful' to him when he helped to resolve an issue between the then-Ukip leader and The Times newspaper, where Mr Gove was working at the time. He insisted his feelings about Mr Farage were 'very powerfully ambivalent' but he praised his skills as a communicator. He said: 'I think that he does have, which Boris [Johnson] had in a different way, an intuitive feel for how parts of the country think at any given time, and he is not burdened or constrained in the way that some of the rest of us are by thinking that's unrespectable, or that's outside the Overton window, or that would never work in government'. He added that one 'underplayed element' of the Reform leader, however, was that 'he is, in effect, a bulwark against greater extremism'. In a high-profile row with billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, who was earlier this year working in a specially created post as Donald Trump's 'first buddy' in the White House, Mr Farage refused to endorse far-right activist Tommy Robinson, saying: 'My view remains that Tommy Robinson is not right for Reform and I never sell out my principles.' Last month, a leading pollster suggested that support for Reform had 'topped out' and that the momentum that was leading the party to soar in the polls had ground to a halt. Conservative peer Robert Hayward told The Independent that the results of recent council by-elections, which Reform lost while defending seats, and national polling figures, suggest that the march of Mr Farage to Downing Street at the next general election could be facing a setback.
Times
3 days ago
- Times
IRA spy triggered security alert by hitting safe house panic alarm
Armed police units descended on the safe house where MI5 was hiding the notorious IRA spy Stakeknife in the months before he died. The security alert was triggered when the agent, whose real name was Freddie Scappaticci, is thought to have pushed a panic button after falling ill in February 2023. The incident heightened the suspicions of neighbours in the village of West End, near Woking, Surrey, that there was something unusual about the elderly man renting the large detached house. The property is in the parliamentary constituency of Surrey Heath, which at the time was represented by the former cabinet minister Michael Gove. Scappaticci, a builder from Belfast, was using the name Frank Cowley and claiming to be a property developer. In reality he was in hiding after fleeing Northern Ireland in 2003 when he was exposed as a British agent. The owner of the house said he had been approached in 2019 by a local estate agent saying they had a company which wanted the house for an employee. The company was willing to pay £3,000 per month, much more than the market rate. • Secret court seals will of IRA spy Stakeknife until 2095 The tenancy was uneventful until February 2023 when the landlord was contacted by neighbours telling him the house was surrounded by marked and unmarked police cars and armed officers were in the driveway and the back garden. The landlord visited the property later that day: 'The neighbours were petrified and no-one told them what was going on. One woman was on a Zoom call, heard people shouting 'armed police' and stuck her hands up in the air.' He was met by a younger man who, he recalled, avoided eye contact as they spoke. He said the tenant had been taken to hospital and was suffering with dementia. 'He told me the man had been confused and had dialed 999 by mistake,' the landlord said. 'I thought I had been renting the house to a working professional, not an older man with a serious illness. I remember saying to my wife later that I didn't believe a word of what I'd been told.' • Stakeknife files: report clearing MI5 over IRA spy 'is a whitewash' Scappaticci was moved to the village after his previous address, in nearby Guildford, was compromised when he was arrested in 2018 by Operation Kenova, the special police unit investigating his activities in the IRA. During the Troubles, while spying for British military intelligence on the upper echelons of the republican movement, Scappaticci was also a leading figure in the IRA internal security unit which hunted, interrogated and killed suspected informants. The unit was known as the 'nutting squad' because its victims were shot in the head after being tortured, and their bodies dumped by the roadside. The Kenova investigation identified Scappaticci as a key suspect in at least 14 murders and 15 abductions. He was never charged with any of those offences but pleaded guilty at Westminster magistrates court to possessing extreme pornography which officers had found on his laptop. That arrest and court appearance made it necessary for MI5 to relocate him and give him a new identity. While in Guildford he had used the name Frank Conway, was registered on the electoral roll and purchased a house. The property was sold in 2019 for £443,000 after Scappaticci moved to West End using the name Cowley. • 'Woeful' system means spy agencies not held accountable, MPs warn Scappaticci's health was deteriorating and it is understood that a member of his family moved in to look after him. It is understood he suffered a stroke in February 2023 and a series of other strokes followed. He died, aged 77, at St Peter's Hospital, Chertsey, in March 2023 and the death certificate — in his new identity — gives the cause as pneumonia and stroke. News of his death was not made public until the following month after his funeral and burial had taken place. Last week the high court ruled that Scappaticci's will should be sealed until 2095, a level of secrecy previously only afforded to the estates of members of the royal family. • The IRA killed my mum, sacrificed by the army to save Stakeknife Kevin Winters, solicitor for several families of Stakeknife's victims, said some of his clients planned to make a legal bid to unseal Scappaticci's will so they could claim damages from the estate. 'This news has reminded families of their status as second-class conflict victims,' said Winters. 'The stigma they have endured over the decades has now been reinforced by the very state agencies supposedly tasked with removing such stigma.' Gavin Booth, another lawyer for victim families, said it was perverse for the courts to seal the will and say it was against the public interest to publish it in the normal way. He said: 'This man is at the centre of a series of civil cases taken by families against the state for the murder of their loved ones. Surely disclosure of his will is in the public interest in circumstances where proceedings have been issued over his actions'.
The Herald Scotland
4 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
I found Sarah Vine's book unexpectedly heart-wrenching
If you were an aspiring politician seeking to annexe a seat anywhere south of Liverpool (and you'd be amazed how many Scots have done so) then be conversant with this woman's weekly chronicles. When I met her to discuss her book amidst the streets that form her Kensington hunting grounds, she'd written that day about the kitchen psycho-drama of Prince Harry's fractured (and probably irredeemable) relationship with his father, King Charles. In Scotland, we who fancy ourselves to be above these royal tribulations, dismiss them and cite them as evidence in the case against the Union. In England though, and most especially in working-class neighbourhoods, the Windsors' bizarre rituals are Shakespearian. They take sides and cheer on their champions from this cursed House. Read more Kevin McKenna: It's not long though – just a few pages, really – until (horror of horrors) you find yourself emotionally captured by her story of being married to the former Tory cabinet minister, Michael Gove. And how a once happy union was chiselled out by Brexit and by the class structure that still exists at the top of the Tories on which they spend a lot of money and time to conceal from the rest of us. You begin investing in this story about how Westminster's political thresher (and maybe Holyrood's too) can steal your soul if you're foolish enough to believe you can surf it and remain upright. It's also about surviving as a woman amidst the casual sexism that still pervades my industry and the outright misogyny that runs through Big Politics. There are startling moments, not least an egregiously misogynistic insult aimed at her by the comedian, Stewart Lee, in his Observer column. 'As a student, David Cameron is rumoured to have put his penis into a dead pig. To outdo him, Michael Gove put his penis into a Daily Mail journalist.' On a family trip to New York, they're spotted by another British couple. Not even the presence of their two children – 10 and 12 – spares them. 'W****** like you shouldn't be allowed to have children,' shouted the woman. 'The point I was trying to make, is one about the one process of dehumanisation,' she tells me. 'They don't see you as a person. I write for the Daily Mail and I was married to a Tory. So the normal rules of decency are suspended.' Vine admires current Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch (Image: Stefan Rousseau) She admires the current Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch. 'She's got the balls to do it; she's got the appetite and is feisty and she has a vision and isn't afraid to ram it home. We're told that one dog year equals seven human years. It's the same with politicians.' She's right, of course. Politicians seem to age before our eyes in the term of a single parliament. Ms Vine's story – even without the politics and the tiaras – is a compelling one. Of a girl living in Italy where her affluent parents had moved to embrace la dolce vita amidst their extra-marital affairs and the tantrums that followed them and who felt like an ugly duckling in a school full of young Mediterranean beauties. Of being psychologically abused by her dad, who seemed embarrassed at his daughter's physical appearance (she still frets about her weight and discusses her alopecia and her anti-depressants). One entry leaves you shredded. It's when, as a teenager, she returns to Italy for the summer from boarding school in England where she'd starved herself into something approaching svelte. Her dad now felt she was fit enough for him to be seen in public with her in Italian café society, at one point instructing her 'to wiggle for a table'. I found this heart-wrenching to the extent that I immediately resolved to call my own two daughters and just, you know, be closer to them. What things were said and unsaid; how many were the hugs not given? She tells me that the stuff about her dad needed to be in there 'to explain who I am and what I am and why I'm so flawed'. She'd sent the book to her brother. 'Is this okay? You were there too; you remember all that stuff.' He'd called and said: 'Sarah, honestly, you've been far too nice.' She had called her dad to tell him there was material in the book he may find uncomfortable. 'He said 'Oh alright then, and went back to watching the telly'.' Back to England then and university (languages) and falling into journalism after a fateful encounter with some of Fleet Street's finest in one of their taverns. And then meeting Michael Gove on a skiing trip with the nucleus of what would later be called 'the Notting Hill Set': There's a perception among Scottish journalists that the old English newspaper titles are populated by the scions of old families who weren't considered smart enough for high political office and thus favours had to be called in. Ms Vine though, is a proper old-school journalist who has held down most jobs in the gnarly business of producing newsprint. There's no question of her not having earned her position. I was once asked what had made the Mail so popular across all classes in England. The best I could come up with was that they represented the Margo Leadbetter character in The Good Life. In one episode, she's in a long Post Office queue being truculently fobbed off at the counter. 'I am the voice of the Silent Majority,' she'd said. Margo seemed to embody those English stereotypes we both love and hate: of enduring challenges with stalwart resilience because, well … being English obliges you to care without showing it; to be silent in adversity, confident perhaps that you'll have your moment and that it will be a terrible one indeed. I love them for it and loathe them in equal measure. Perhaps though, it's that early Italian influence on Ms Vine that enkindled her desire in this book to settle a few scores; to chivvy those who were inconstant or who disappeared when she was deemed no longer to possess a social cachet. It's not revenge, as such, more an abjuration that they should perhaps have known that this day would come when the smart, sassy columnist – the Wednesday Witch in Daily Mail parlance – would strap on her stilettoes and have her day in long form with one of Britain's top publishers. The inside story of Brexit and how it laid waste to relationships and brought families to the brink of breaking up is a dominant theme. Did it wreck her own – happy – marriage to Michael Gove who is now out of politics entirely? Or, would they still have split? Would he always have been drawn like a moth to the flame of politics; while she with her daily, acerbic registers refused to adopt the role of dutiful Tory wife bred to endure and to absorb and to be silent? In the end it wasn't a clash of personalities, or infidelity or excessive drinking; or abnormal behaviour which sealed the split, but the sight of her husband choosing to absent himself with a book in the upstairs bedroom of their new home while she and her elderly mum (who had flown from Italy to help with the flitting) did all the heavy lifting. Before then, a sense of isolation had begun to settle on them both. The gradual, wretched realisation that for all their brains and unprivileged endeavour; for their wit and charisma, they'd never quite been accepted within their set. And that, when the chips were down and the balloon was up and the lights had gone out, a process of social exclusion by stealth was well underway. They had committed the cardinal sin of failing to acknowledge their place in the grand scheme: deference to the upper classes of High Toryism. To the naked, unschooled eye, they were both at the very apex of England's social, political and cultural food chain. But when Michael Gove had defied his friend, David Cameron, by becoming a chief Brexiteer and Sarah Vine had backed him they were brutally disabused of any notions about parity of esteem. Read more Kevin McKenna: In these circles, your status is conferred for eternity by the title deeds of 13th century land-grabs. They were best of friends with David and Samantha Cameron and Ms Vine had been Godmother to their daughter. When you step outside the role laid down for you though – absolute obeisance – you get voided. The book though, also slakes your appetite for dinner party capers among the horsey set and names are dropped like confetti. It's all rather glorious and we're treated to occasional forays into the inter-marital houghmagandie of the upper crust, because, we all know that the High Tories are all fond of their shagging and probably still claim a bit of your 'droit de seigneur' This is most memorably narrated when a bright and loyal Tory adviser, is hinted to be conducting an affair with Samantha Cameron's stepfather, William Astor. This unravelled in what seemed a most cut-glass, English manner. There were no names and no big red-top screamer … just an unmarked entry by the Mail's kenspeckle diarist, Richard Kay hinting at a tryst. And lo, she was gone and never heard of again, while the old goat emerged relatively unscathed. It's here that I must offer some words of advice to Ms Vine. If her book makes it into paperback and thence into a Netflix adaptation (virtually guaranteed) please be rid of the cover on this hardback edition. It's dreadful and exceedingly low-calibre, showing a woman lying fully prone and face down. It channels an energy that's entirely at odds with the dynamics of Ms Vine's rise, fall and recovery. How Not to be a Political Wife: HarperCollins £20
