Michael Gove says Liz Truss will be toppled and live up to her ‘human hand grenade’ nickname
Michael Gove on Tuesday said it was a matter of when not if Liz Truss will be toppled and joked she had lived up to her “human hand grenade” nickname.
In a series of scathing remarks about the Prime Minister, Mr Gove said the role of Ms Truss’s boss was “now a job share between Jeremy Hunt and the bond market”.
He also predicted that there would be no fracking in the UK despite the Prime Minister lifting the ban on such practices because communities would not approve it.
The intervention came after Downing Street recommitted to Ms Truss’s promise of spending 3 per cent of GDP on defence by 2030 after a second defence minister threatened resignation.
A Cabinet meeting to discuss spending cuts demanded by Mr Hunt, the new Chancellor, ran longer than expected on Tuesday, with a Whitehall battle on budgets set to play out in the next fortnight.
Neither health spending nor defence spending will be ring-fenced from savings, with the Ministry of Defence still expected to find efficiencies in the coming years.
Mr Gove, the Tory MP for Surrey Heath and former Communities Secretary, announced his resignation from the Tory front bench over the summer when it became clear that Ms Truss was on course to become the next Prime Minister.
Speaking at an event organised by JLA Speakers Bureau on Tuesday morning, Mr Gove gave a series of frank and forthright assessments of the Prime Minister.
The remarks were reported by the Guardian. Mr Gove later said that they had been given under so-called Chatham House rules, which means not to be quoted, but did not dispute their accuracy.
He was asked by LBC presenter Sangita Myska, the event’s host, whether it was “no longer a question of whether Liz Truss goes, but when she goes”.
Mr Gove said “absolutely right”, adding: “The question for any leader is: what happens when the programme or the platform on which you secured the leadership has been shredded.”
He also cited Dante in saying: “After hell comes purgatory and paradise.”
Mr Gove said: “Purgatory is going to be a tough economic medicine applied in this country and elsewhere. For how long I don’t know. But until and unless the interest rate increases, and other measures required in order to kill and reduce inflation are in place, then we won’t get out of this mess.”
Elsewhere during the discussion Mr Gove joked that he had been Ms Truss’s boss, adding that is “of course a role which is now a job share between Jeremy Hunt and the bond markets”. He also said “we all know now” Ms Truss had the nickname “the human hand grenade”.
On fracking, Mr Gove said it would not take place in the UK “because no community will be sufficiently incentivised to do it” – a comment which in part reflects his former ministerial brief.
