Dear The Weekly,
Hello. I am Michael Andrew Gove. I am sure you have heard of me. My friends call me Mikey. I am the guy in the rather unflattering photograph above.
Over the past ten years, I have been there, done it and got the T-shirt … Education, Chief Whip, Justice, Brexit, Cabinet Office, Environment, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and now … Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. The one job I haven’t yet held is PM. But, trust me, that is only a matter of time!
I can tell you … I am absolutely spitting feathers. Boris, backed up by his slippery next-door neighbour (whose name I can’t even be bothered to remember) persuaded me to change the name of my department. I told them that I thought there was nothing wrong with the old one, but no sooner had I added the words ‘Levelling Up’, than the two of them were stabbing me in the back (again). Without consulting me, they have pushed the eastern link of HS2 firmly into the sidings, and the proposed Trans-Pennine Rail Link, between Manchester and Leeds, has ground to a virtual halt because some twit at the Treasury has dumped a massive dollop of leaves on the line. How on earth can you level up if you can’t get there? Trust me. They haven’t heard the end of this!
And what about this second ministerial job fiasco? It was ‘you-know-who’ from Number 11 who was insisting that ministers should take on second jobs to ease the skills shortage. You can see that I have chosen to be a litter collection operative. However, now they are saying we shouldn’t have second jobs. For goodness’ sake, just make up your minds. You may well ask why I chose this particular line of work? That’s easy. I want to get in as much practice as possible at clearing out rubbish for when I finally move into Number 10.
Housing? What a dog’s breakfast. As you know, Boris was all gung-ho about changing the planning laws. Well, following some very clear feedback on last summer’s White Paper from my Surrey Heath constituents (who know a thing or two about backyards), I have put a stop to this nonsense. Trust me. It's going nowhere. And expect all that mumbo-jumbo stuff about traffic lights and zonal planning to be canned. The whole thing is academic anyway, as there aren’t enough planning officers to cope with the current workload, let alone adding to it.
I openly admit that we have failed dismally in pursuing our target of building 300,000 homes each year in England. It seems we only managed 243,770 in 2019/20. But remember, it wasn’t me that set the target. All that said, under my regime, we will be taking the whole thing much more seriously. Trust me.
But setting this short-term setback aside for one moment, I am pleased to report that, after only a few weeks in post, I have sorted out an even more pressing housing issue. My friend, Liz Truss, has agreed that I can move into the Foreign Secretary’s ‘grace and favour’ home at 1. Carlton Gardens. Isn’t that great? At this stage though, I am not sure whether it comes with or without her! With that settled, we really do need to get on with the job.
The first thing, of course, is to understand exactly what ‘levelling up’ means. It seems that no-one in the Government knows… not even Boris … which I guess isn’t that surprising. But hey! That hasn’t stopped Santa Sunak chucking £4.8 billion into a Levelling Up Fund. But if he thinks that that will be anywhere near enough to get the job done, then he is even more deluded than I thought. Trust me. I plan to give him a really hard time when it comes to demanding dosh.
I am serious about this levelling up thing, you know. Trust me. So much so that I have written a poem that everyone in the office must recite each morning. Well, they would if they could actually be bothered to come into the office!
Levelling Up by Mikey Gove (Contender for next Poet Laureate?)
It’s true – Up North they’ve had a poor deal.
Build more McDonalds for a healthy square meal
Decent grub and some tea in a cup
That’s Mikey’s solution to Levelling Up.
Next on my list, and particularly in my new capacity as ‘Champion of Communities’, is to sort out our night-time economy. You probably didn’t know but nightlife is the pumping heart of communities 'Up North'. I imagine you are now probably having a bit of a giggle knowing that I was spotted bopping away in the Pipe nightclub in Aberdeen a couple of months’ ago. But hey! It was my way of conducting grassroots research. Without such selfless commitment, how else would I know that:
The night-time economy lost £36 billion in trade and an estimated 393,000 jobs between March 2020 and June 2021, proportionately more than any other part of the leisure sector (Night Time Industries Association).
The rent collection rate for pubs, bars and restaurants after 21 days for Q3 2021 was just 33.8% (REMIT).
However, against that negative background, it is encouraging that night-time footfall in the centre of the UK’s sixty-three largest cities bounced back by 35% between Freedom Day (19 July) and the end of September … and is still rising (Centre for Cities).
Which reminds me, I meant to mention that Carlton Gardens has a BALLROOM! Hurrah! It will give me the chance to learn how to do that shuffle-type dance Hugh Grant did in Love Actually when I finally become Prime Minister. In fact, I have used that really clever app to super-impose my head onto Hugh’s body in this clip. I have added a bit more hair too so that it makes me look really groovy.
Anyway, I must dash. Enjoy your Sunday. Do pop in for a cuppa anytime you are in the Carlton Gardens area. But one request… please finish your Big Mac before you come in.
Too-da-loo.
Mikey