POSITION
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
COMPANY
Conservative Party
COUNTRY
United Kingdom
AGE
56 years
Website
SCENE
SOCIAL
Michael Gove is a British Conservative politician, who was Secretary of State for Education from 2010 to 2014 and Secretary of State for Justice from 2015 to 2016. He became Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the cabinet reshuffle on 11 June 2017.
Gove attended Robert Gordon’s College, a private school located in Aberdeen after he was awarded a scholarship. He then studied English at the University of Oxford and while he was there served as the president of the Oxford Union.
Like many others who eventually ended up in politics, Gove worked as a journalist. First as a trainee reporter at the Press and Journal in Aberdeen before joining the Times in 1996 as a leader writer. He then ascended to its comment editor, news editor, Saturday editor and finally Assistant Editor.
It may come as a shock to many but before he left for Oxford University in 1983 he joined the Labour Party for a brief stint before leaving Aberdeen and stating he was now a Tory.
Gove took a prominent role in the campaign to leave the European Union. He wrote a statement explaining why he disagreed with his friend and colleague David Cameron on the issue arguing that “Britain would be stronger outside the EU”.
He backed the Leave campaign and then became the campaign manager to Boris Johnson when he launched his leadership bid following the vote to leave the EU in June 2016. Michael Gove is married to Sarah Vine, a columnist for the Daily Mail.
She is thought to be influential in steering her husband’s political career. Gove has now been drafted in Theresa May’s ‘War Cabinet’. Senior government sources said the expansion had occurred in order to get Gove on the panel because he is seen as a key power broker whose approval would be needed for any deal.
He is viewed by Downing Street as an imaginative problem-solver.
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