The Sketch: Meet young Gove, thinking person's Boris Johnson
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Your support makes all the difference.The name on the door of the Surrey Heath Conservative Association says Nick Hawkins. Now I remember what I'm doing here. This is the other safe Tory seat where the sitting member was booted out - in this case for "not listening". The new candidate is nice young Michael Gove. He's the thinking man's Boris Johnson. He has the sort of good looks that do so well on radio. He's keen, alert, voluble, very clever - but I urge you not to take an instant dislike to him. No, he'll be around a long while yet.
The name on the door of the Surrey Heath Conservative Association says Nick Hawkins. Now I remember what I'm doing here. This is the other safe Tory seat where the sitting member was booted out - in this case for "not listening". The new candidate is nice young Michael Gove. He's the thinking man's Boris Johnson. He has the sort of good looks that do so well on radio. He's keen, alert, voluble, very clever - but I urge you not to take an instant dislike to him. No, he'll be around a long while yet.
He's not exactly local to Surrey Heath, but his Welsh wife's mother lived in Farnborough for a while and he lives there now. And has done long enough to know the answer to my cunning question: "How many times has Windlesham won the FA Cup?" But you probably know that as well.
So. Why go into politics? Michael used to be a commentator for a national newspaper. They are gods, you know. Even on The Times. He could have booked lunch with Michael Howard on a week's notice. Now he'll be lucky to get a Christmas card. So why? No MP has ever answered this question without using the terrifying words: "To make the world a better place". Michael says it was the form his mid-life crisis took instead of a leather jacket and a girlfriend. He also makes a joke about the party slogan ("Cleaner policemen?"). He's not being disloyal, he knows I like jokes like that.
We made a trip to a community hall. They run a pre-school service here and Michael was introduced to the mothers. He replied sympathetically to one lady's concern about mobile phone masts - and without using the words "the more the merrier". That was good, I thought. He asked another mother what her concerns were. She didn't really have much in the way of concerns, but to keep the conversation going she volunteered the word: "children" and got a tutorial on child careand how it meshed with the wider Conservative education policy. She was going to vote Labour. "I suspect we have different core values," Michael ventured. She didn't disagree.
It was a depressing experience in the end. Michael will be an adornment to the House of Commons, no doubt. But he hasn't thought of any form of words that would make these young mothers or elderly bingo players proud to be Tories.
It's just not that sort of election they're fighting.
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