4 days ago
How the Goves kept up with the Camerons: the cost of richer friends
I f you're keeping up with the revelations from Sarah Vine's new Westminster wife's kiss'n'tell you will know that the best bit of How Not to Be a Political Wife so far is the Gove's fallout with the Camerons.
Vine, now the former Mrs Michael Gove and free to do her worst, takes us back to the very beginning (before the Tories did well enough at the 2010 election for Dave and Sam to take up residence in Downing Street … Chequers karaoke nights ahoy!) and painstakingly walks us through the gradual unspooling of their friendship.
Was it Brexit that broke these two couples apart — Gove supported Leave, Dave Remain, remember — or was the friendship holed below the waterline by Cameron demoting his friend from minister for education to chief whip two years previously? Hard to say, but the other strong possibility, as Vine admits, is that their relationship was always on a ticking timer with the less powerful Goves scrabbling to keep up with their more affluent and powerful Notting Hill set chums.
