Former Conservative MP Michael Gove says he would rather have Nigel Farage as Prime Minister than Keir Starmer.
Gove was speaking on The Rest Is Politics podcast with Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart.
When asked if he believed Reform leader Nigel Farage could be prime minister in three years, he said: “He could be, yes” though his ideal candidate would be Kemi Badenoch.
Michael added that he would prefer Nigel Farage to Keir Starmer staying on, who he called a “terrible” Prime Minister.
He added: “I’d rather Nigel Farage than Keir Starmer. I don’t wish Keir Starmer any ill, but I think he’s a terrible Prime Minister.
“There are individual Labour ministers whom I admire. People who read The Spectator will know that. It only embarrasses them, I’m sure.
“There are people like Shabana Mahmood, Wes Streeting, and as it happens Douglas Alexander who I think are really good. But I just think that I feel sorry now for Keir Starmer.”
The politician, who is now editor of The Spectator, added that he doesn’t believe Nigel Farage is a racist, and that they agree on several things.
He said: “First of all, I think that there are some areas where I do agree with Farage. And secondly, I also think that he is absolutely not a racist.
“And one of the charges that’s flung at him is that he either out of prejudice or out of cynicism plays to the politics of race and identity. I don’t think that.
“I do worry, however, that there is so little behind him that in Reform, in that broad movement, it’s just, you know, a ragtag array of pirates.
“And what this country needs is not pirates in charge. It needs a proper navy, as it were, to adopt the metaphor, where everyone is sailing together in the national interest and proud to be under one flag.”
Also, within the interview Michael spoke a lot about his upbringing, which he commented was “unconventional” for a Tory politician.
He was born to a student in Aberdeen and was in care for the first four months of his life before being adopted by who became his parents in Christmas of 1967.
Michael says that he doesn’t know much at all about his biological parents, and says he has never tried to find this out- as he believes it would be offensive to his adoptive folks.
He said: “Well, I think that for people of my particular generation, we were almost the last generation before some of the laws changed around abortion and the termination of children.
“And therefore, I was one of the last of a generation, I think, where mothers had no option, effective option, but to carry a child to term and then give them up for adoption.
“I don’t know anything about my birth father. The only things that I know are that I was born Graeme, Andrew Logan, and I know that my birth mother was originally brought up in Edinburgh, then moved to Aberdeen to study as I say to be a cookery demonstrator. I don’t know anything else about my background.
“I have felt that to try to find up more about my birth mother and my family might suggest to my, my mom who’s still alive, that somehow the love that she gave me wasn’t complete, that there was something missing.
“And she’s never tried to steer me away from it. She’s never suggested that I shouldn’t do this, but it’s just something that I know and feel.”
He says that his mum came from a working-class background, while his dad was lower middle class- though they did manage to send him to an independent school.
His adoptive dad, who passed away a few years ago, had always voted Conservative, but his mum famously voted Labour.
However, once Michael joined the Conservative party, his mum did briefly switch parties to support her son.
He said: “It was clear that there was no sort of biological link between my very athletic dad and my very pretty mother and me.
“My mum was always Labour. She voted Conservative during the time that I was an MP, but now that I am no longer an MP, she has gone back to voting Labour.”
Other topics discussed include his controversial backing of Israel in the conflict with Palestine, his time at Oxford University with Boris Johnson, and his takes on Brexit.
Michael also revealed that he has been seeing a psychiatrist, which he did not want to elaborate on, but the hosts joked the job was “some gig”.
