With just three weeks left to run in the Tory leadership contest, Michael Gove will slip into the editors’ chair at the Spectator to take his pick of the contestants. He has been appointed by the hedge fund tycoon Paul Marshall – who pumped millions into GB News and owns UnHerd – after his purchase of the Spectator for £100m earlier this month.
As editor of the Conservatives’ parish magazine, Gove will be, as one insider said, “extraordinarily influential” as to which candidate members – who make up a significant proportion of the title’s readers – vote for when the parliamentary party whittles the choice down to two.
Just weeks ago the leadership contender Kemi Badenoch said she was “not controlled” by Gove at a hustings event. Attendees in the room said Badenoch insisted: “I can tell you now nobody controls me and nobody puts anything in my head.” Perhaps. But now Gove will be in charge of one of the party’s chief intellectual organs.
Gove takes up his new job after Tory conference on 8 October. He supplants Fraser Nelson who has served 15 years as editor and achieved the difficult task of transforming the title into a quality digital product with healthy subscription revenue while protecting the printed product.
Despite rumours circulating for several weeks, many staff were “shell-shocked” as the news broke. Journalists explained that some had “almost worshipped” Nelson, regarding him a “voice of reason” amid the trials of Brexit and the revolving door of Tory leaders. He was also credited as good at the human side of being an editor too.
After the news of Gove’s appointment landed, Nelson published a gracious leader column explaining he was leaving. Admittedly, reading the piece did feel rather like watching a hostage video with its sense of “yes, I’m fine – they’ve treated me well”.
Nelson wrote: “There’s never a good time to leave a job like mine but, after 15 years and a new owner with big ambitions, there is an obvious time.” He called Gove a “first-class journalist” who had been his news editor when he started out on the Times. Nelson will become associate editor of the Spectator.
Rumours had been circulating last month that Marshall wanted Gove as his editor. But when Nelson wrote a leader full of praise for Marshall immediately after the sale was announced, it was felt maybe he’d done enough to secure his position. Not so.
Gove has a strong journalist pedigree. He started out on the Aberdeen Press and Journal before moving to the Times where he served as a leader writer, news editor, Saturday editor, and then assistant editor.
The former minister is much admired by Rupert Murdoch, and it was rumoured the News UK boss wanted him back as Times editor at some point. One person who must be more relaxed tonight is its current editor Tony Gallagher.
On Friday (27 September) the next round of bids must be submitted for the Spectator‘s former sister titles, the Daily and Sunday Telegraph. Marshall remains in the frame for them but it now looks more likely he will step away to concentrate on the Spectator and its expansion into the US.
In pole position is a consortium of investors led by the former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, who this week raised the prospect of installing Boris Johnson as editor should his bid be successful. Zahawi told Arabian Business website: “I would be mad to turn away Boris Johnson.”
Meanwhile, Johnson’s former Telegraph columnist pal Charles Moore (granted a peerage by, er… Boris Johnson) steps into the chairman role at the Spectator. Moore, who previously edited the magazine, will apparently “safeguard the editorial independence and soul of the magazine during its expansion”. Moore replaces Andrew Neil as chairman, whose short spell at GB News ended in acrimony. Neil quit immediately on the sale of the Spectator to Marshall.
One person who may be cancelling their subscription is the former culture minister Nadine Dorries. She has previously claimed Gove is at the centre of a sinister group trying to control the Tories, with the intention of making Kemi Badenoch party leader. Who knows? In five years she could be in Downing Street.
Maybe then, £100m will feel like money well spent for Marshall.
Despite some cynicism about Gove’s appointment, the former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie was far warmer, writing on X: “Gove has three qualities which I feel will make him an inspired choice as Editor. He’s Disloyal, Deceitful and Disgruntled.”
[See also: How the “Jewish Chronicle” lost its way]
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