I knew Michael Gove as a journalist. He had a much more dangerous habit back then – pathological Euroscepticism

When you’ve worked in journalism for decades, you tend to learn about the behaviours and beliefs that politicians often try to bury years later. The environment secretary’s tended to focus on the European Union

I suppose we may as well start calling it “the Gove affair”, such is the coverage being given to Michael Gove’s consumption of cocaine. As a story it seems to be quite addictive.

As it happens, I used to know Michael Gove when he was a young journalist. Before he joined The Times I worked with him at the BBC. I wish I could say that I had burst in on him doing Charlie, so to speak, in the Television Centre bogs. Maybe he did himself host cocaine parties, snow all round those chubby chops, orgies to which I was not invited.

Had I been, I would have found the whole thing uncomfortable as I’ve not taken the stuff, but also because to me it was always a toff’s sort of drug, coke, the sort of thing they’d get high on at the Bullingdon Club at Oxford.