Michael Gove

Michael Gove is a close policy aide of David Cameron. He was formerly a deputy editor of The Times, and is still a columnist there. Like George Osborne, Gove is a fan of George Bush, and an enthusiast for Operation Iraqi Freedom. On 30 October 2005, on a BBC Panorama programme, he acted as the advocate for the indefinite occupation of Iraq.

David Morrison writes:

as Neil Clark pointed out in The Guardian, Vaizey and Gove are both signatories to the Statement of Principles of the British neoconservative organisation, The Henry Jackson Society Project for Democratic Geopolitics, which was launched in Peterhouse College, Cambridge earlier this year. Henry Jackson was a Democrat member of the US Congress for over 40 years until his death in 1983. He opposed détente with the Soviet Union, and is the ideological forbear of modern neo-conservatism. Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz worked for him in the 1970s, and went on to work for Ronald Reagan. “International patrons” of this British Society include the stars in the American neoconservative firmament, for example, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Editor of the Weekly Standard, Richard Perle and James Woolsey, former Director of the CIA.^[1]

Former Conservative MP and now Times columnist Matthew Parris writes:

If you had to identify what you might call Michael’s abiding passion in politics, you would find it in a consistent, intelligent rage against what he would see as the unwitting appeasement of wicked and violent men by flabby, woolly-minded liberals. Now in Parliament, he is part of the small group of Tories, somewhat mis-named the Notting Hill Set, in control of the higher brain functions of that great and ancient political beast, the Conservative Party.^[2]

Affiliations

Gove accepting his prize for 'unrelenting' support for Israel from Eric Moonman, February 2008

• European Freedom Fund trustee
• Newton's Apple
• Policy Exchange co-founder
• Recipient of the 'Jerusalem prize' from the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland, 2008

Notes

^ David Morrison 'David Cameron: Blair Mark II? Spinwatch, 21 November 2005.

^ Matthew Parris 'Welcome to Cameron's Europe-hating and Pentagon-loving party' The Times Online, May 20, 2006.