Michael Gove’s Political Sob Story: The Tragedy of Lady Vine and the Leaky Email

Michael Gove has finally revealed what really hurt him most during his illustrious political career—and no, it’s not that he backstabbed his way to the top only to trip over his own ambition and tumble back down again. It’s not even the fact that he’s been forced to endure years of people treating him like the Brexit bogeyman. No, the deep wound Gove can’t seem to heal is the cruel treatment of his ex-wife, Sarah Vine, by those wicked, wicked critics.

You see, Sarah Vine—Daily Mail columnist extraordinaire and part-time kitchen critic—was apparently treated unfairly in the aftermath of Gove’s infamous 2016 betrayal of Boris Johnson. Gove says she was cruelly cast as a "Lady Macbeth figure," and the tragedy of it all seems to have left the poor man deeply, deeply scarred. Never mind that she quite literally sent him an email advising him to extort a cabinet position from Johnson before pledging his support. “Hold out for specific assurances,” she wrote, as though casually discussing what to cook for dinner. "Without that, you have no leverage." Ah, the sweet, loving counsel of a wife just looking out for her husband’s political welfare.

But when that email accidentally went public—leaked to the media faster than you can say “Et tu, Brute”—Sarah became collateral damage, or so Gove tells us. Forget the fact that Gove had just knifed his best friend in front of the entire Conservative Party; let’s shed a tear for Sarah, who was cast as the power-hungry mastermind behind it all. I mean, who could have guessed that a woman telling her husband to blackmail his way into high office would end up compared to Lady Macbeth? It’s practically a Shakespearean injustice.

And just like Lady Macbeth, Sarah Vine was only trying to get things done. “Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t,” she might as well have told Michael. After all, who better to advise a husband on the fine art of betrayal than the woman behind his rise? But alas, the world is cruel, and instead of being praised for her strategic brilliance, Vine was ridiculed. It's a narrative that must have felt terribly unfair as Gove wandered through Westminster with blood on his hands—but not the leadership he had hoped for.

The Real Victim Here: Sarah Vine

Now, Gove would have us believe that Sarah Vine is an innocent bystander in this great political tragedy. Sure, she gave him career advice that would make Machiavelli proud, but it’s not like she was hatching a plot to take over the kingdom. No, she was just a supportive wife, trying to help Michael navigate the treacherous waters of British politics. If anything, it’s her who’s the real victim here. Not Gove, not Johnson—her.

Vine herself has touched on this injustice, dubbing the entire "Lady Macbeth question" as "fundamentally misogynistic." According to Vine, no one ever labels husbands as scheming villains for getting involved in their wives' careers. Oh no, when men give career advice, they’re just being “helpful,” while wives, it seems, must always be the puppeteers behind the curtain. Poor Sarah! A woman can’t even send a conniving political email anymore without being called manipulative! What a world we live in.

The email itself is a masterpiece of political manipulation. “You MUST have SPECIFIC from Boris,” she typed, in all-caps urgency, like a general preparing for battle. The subtext: If Johnson didn’t promise Gove a shiny new cabinet post, then loyalty be damned. But of course, this is where the Shakespearean bit comes in—Gove’s wife was merely giving strategic advice, and yet she ended up being compared to a murderous, scheming queen with blood on her hands. How unfair. How tragic. How… on the nose.

You can almost picture Gove wandering around his kitchen (probably the one they spent £7,000 renovating on taxpayer expenses) muttering, “Out, damn spot!” as he scrubs at the stains of political betrayal.

When Emails Go Wrong: A Guide to Ending Friendships

Two days after the infamous email leaked, Gove plunged his own dagger into Boris Johnson’s leadership bid, launching a surprise bid of his own. Johnson, the golden-haired wunderkind of the Brexit campaign, suddenly found himself on the sidelines, wondering what in the name of Caesar had just happened. Well, Boris, what happened is that your dear friend Michael decided he wanted the throne for himself—and he had Sarah Vine’s emailed playbook to guide him through it.

But in classic Gove fashion, the leadership bid flopped spectacularly. It was the political equivalent of watching someone try to sneak into a nightclub by pretending to know the bouncer, only to trip over their shoelaces and faceplant on the red carpet. Gove, having demolished Johnson’s chances, found himself without a party and without a job. The whole thing was over before it even started, and yet here he is, eight years later, still sore about the fact that his wife got a few bad reviews in the press. Honestly, it’s the political equivalent of burning down your house and then complaining that your curtains are singed.

Lady Macbeth? More Like Lady Mc-Knife-My-Political-Opponents

Gove insists that Vine was unfairly painted as a Lady Macbeth figure—a strong woman being punished simply for having an opinion. But this is Sarah Vine we’re talking about. The woman who single-handedly turned snide remarks into an art form, lambasting everything from Jack Monroe’s parenting choices to Ed Miliband’s “forlorn little kitchen.” Yes, that same Sarah Vine, who built her career on dishing out ruthless critiques of everyone else, is now being rebranded as some poor, misunderstood wife.

Let’s not kid ourselves. This is the woman who gleefully tore into Miliband’s home decor, mocking his modest kitchen in a column where she conveniently forgot to mention that her own kitchen was missing a few knobs—probably because she’d already splashed £7,000 of public money on fixing them. Yet here she is, caught in the media crossfire simply for advising her husband to demand a cabinet post before he backs Boris Johnson. It's the oldest game in politics—get the job, then ask for forgiveness later. Or as Lady Macbeth might say, “What’s done cannot be undone.”

The Rescinded Scoop Invitation: When Ex-Husbands Strike Again

Speaking of what’s done that cannot be undone, there’s another Vine saga that fits neatly into her tale of woe. Vine recently revealed that her invitation to the Scoop premiere—the Netflix dramatisation of Prince Andrew’s car-crash interview—was mysteriously revoked. After all the excitement, her big night out was cancelled, and she was unceremoniously uninvited.

The reason? According to Vine, it’s all down to her ex-husband’s friendship with Sam McAlister, the producer behind the infamous Newsnight interview. Apparently, Gove and McAlister were photographed together a few times after the Gove-Vine split, and this, she speculates, led Netflix’s PR team to pull the plug on her attendance. Oh, the injustice! Imagine being denied entry to a film about a scandal just because your ex-husband knows someone in the credits.

Most people might have taken this in stride, maybe sulked at home with a glass of wine, but not Vine. No, she turned it into another chapter in the endless Gove-Vine saga. “Anyone but Sarah Vine,” Netflix must have whispered, in tones reminiscent of Macbeth’s witches plotting their next move.

The Real Victim Complex

But now, in Gove’s post-MP career as the sage elder statesman of the BBC podcast world, we’re supposed to see him and Sarah as the real victims of 2016. Not the nation, which was plunged into Brexit chaos. Not Boris, who was forced to wait another three years before he could unleash his bumbling charisma on Number 10. No, the real tragedy here is that Sarah Vine was unfairly compared to Lady Macbeth. After all, who among us hasn’t accidentally advised our spouse to blackmail their best friend for political gain, only to be cruelly misrepresented in the press?

Gove’s sob story on Surviving Politics with Michael Gove is the ultimate exercise in deflection. He’s spent years in the thick of Westminster’s most cutthroat moments, but now wants to paint himself as a man simply wounded by the unfairness of it all. And yes, being compared to Shakespearean villains must sting a bit. But when you’re a central player in the modern-day tragedy that is British politics, maybe a bit of self-awareness wouldn’t go amiss.

Until then, we can only watch and wait for the next act in this endless political drama. And if we’re lucky, maybe this time Gove will accidentally leak another email—one where he asks Sarah if she thinks it’s finally time to take over BBC Radio 4. After all, as Lady Macbeth once said, “Screw your courage to the sticking place, and we’ll not fail.”