This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Michael Gove’s wife has accidentally emailed a member of the public with worries about Boris Johnson’s popularity with the Tory membership and with media bosses Rupert Murdoch and Paul Dacre.

The email from Sarah Vine, a Daily Mail columnist, also contained advice to Gove not to guarantee his support for Johnson’s leadership bid without a specific job offer.

Johnson and Gove have been in talks for days about running on what many Tory MPs regard as a dream ticket after their successful campaign to leave the EU. Johnson is expected to announce his leadership candidacy on Thursday, while Gove has been tipped for the role of chancellor, deputy prime minister or foreign secretary and lead negotiator with Brussels about leaving the EU.

Passed to the Guardian and other media outlets, the email sent on Tuesday morning and entitled “thoughts” was intended for Gove himself as well as advisers Henry Cook and Beth Armstrong.

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It exposes Vine’s involvement in Gove’s political career and hints that there are potential sources of disagreement already about the role he could play in a government led by Johnson.

The email read: “Very important that we focus on the individual obstacles and thoroughly overcome them before moving to the next. I really think Michael needs to have a Henry or a Beth with him for this morning’s crucial meetings.



“One simple message: you MUST have SPECIFIC from Boris OTHERWISE you cannot guarantee your support. The details can be worked out later on, but without that you have no leverage.

“Crucially, the membership will not have the necessary reassurance to back Boris, neither will Dacre/Murdoch, who instinctively dislike Boris but trust your ability enough to support a Boris Gove ticket.

“Do not concede any ground. Be your stubborn best.

“GOOD LUCK.”

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A spokesman for Michael Gove said: “We don’t comment on private email exchanges or conversations.”

But a source close to the justice secretary said it was Vine’s personal opinion, adding: “Obviously Boris and Michael have had many discussions about how the campaign will proceed.”

Vine gave an account of Gove’s referendum night in her Daily Mail column. She said he went to bed at 10.30pm and slept soundly until his phone rang at 4.45am on the morning of Friday 24 June and he was informed that Britain had voted to leave the EU.

According to Vine, “there was a short pause while he put on his glasses. ‘Gosh,’ he said. ‘I suppose I had better get up.’”

On the Friday morning, Vine said, she fetched two mugs of strong tea, and as she pulled aside the bedroom curtains she found teams of reporters were already doorstepping them. Live pictures of their house were being broadcast on Sky News.

“By now his phone was buzzing and beeping like a demented frog. ‘You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off,’ I said … In other words, you’ve really torn it now.”

A text from a friend warned her: “Whatever you do, don’t do a Cherie Blair. Concealer, blusher, eyeliner, lipstick: the works.”

Their hastily abandoned plan for the day had been for their eldest daughter and two friends to go to Gove’s office at the Ministry of Justice, but on the school run she learned that the prime minister had resigned.

“This was absolutely categorically not meant to happen. David Cameron was not supposed to go. This was not what this referendum was about; that was not why Michael backed leave,” Vine wrote.

She complained about the reaction to the referendum result on social media, saying the vitriol was not from “your average troll”.

“In a matter of hours, everything sunny about human nature seems to have been sucked out of the atmosphere and you are drenched in little 140-character balls of bitterness,” she wrote.

“Many of the most passionate remainers are well-educated, articulate people in positions of authority, used to getting their own way … Almost overnight those of us on the winning side suddenly found ourselves recast as knuckle-dragging thugs, small-minded Little Englanders whose short-sighted bigotry had brought the nation to its knees while making sweet Italian waitresses cry and stopping small Polish children from going to school.”