Even Michael Gove’s detractors agree that he is one of, if not the most talented ministers and departmental administrators of his generation. So why has Boris Johnson moved him from Defra, a department he transformed from an antechamber for MPs on their way out of government to one of the few genuine success stories of Theresa May’s administration, to the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster?
The sinecure position is whatever the Prime Minister of the day makes of it. The last holder of the office under May, David Lidington, was her de facto deputy – responsible for managing the powerful backroom Cabinet sub-committees where the work of government actually gets done, and liaising with the devolved administrations and Dublin over Brexit.
Gove’s iteration of the role bestows him with even more power than Lidington. He has been given a roving brief to oversee preparations for no-deal across Whitehall , and as such will act as Johnson’s ministerial enforcer on the policy that will define his government. Tories also expect him to act as a representative on earth for Dominic Cummings, his former special adviser at the Department for Education, the campaign chief of Vote Leave, and Johnson’s senior adviser.
That Johnson has picked his sometime nemesis for the job that will quite possibly make or break his administration after a leadership campaign that was not without its fair share of ad hominem and acrimony tells us two things: that he trusts in Gove’s abilities, and that he is determined to prepare for a no-deal Brexit in the serious and coordinated way that so many Leavers feel has never been attempted.
His biggest challenge, then, will be balancing the political demands of that role with his sincerely-held anxieties about the impact of a no-deal – not to mention the need for realpolitik in dealing with Edinburgh and Dublin.
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