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General election 2024 live: Leaders hit the campaign trail as Michael Gove steps down - BBC News General election 2024 live: Leaders hit the campaign trail as Michael Gove steps down - BBC News
(32 minutes later)
Harry Farley Sean Seddon
Political correspondent, reporting from West Midlands Live reporter
The Labour leader has made a habit of hosting campaign We've been covering Michael Gove's announcement that he'll be stepping down as an MP ahead of the general election.
visits at lower league football clubs. But if you cast your memory back, it was when David Cameron returned the Conservatives to power in
He was at Gillingham Football Club in Kent on day one of 2010 that it seemed his friend Michael Gove was earmarked for a top job.
campaigning earlier this week. Today we’ve been at Stafford Rangers FC, who are The former journalist earned a reputation as a reforming
in the Northern Premier League, Premier Division. minister as education secretary, pushing through changes which often proved
It’s a very deliberate campaign decision, a senior Labour controversial with the help of his close advisor Dominic Cummings.
figure tells me. He was moved to chief whip in 2014, which was
There are mundane practical reasons – it’s a ready-made venue widely seen as a demotion for publicly clashing with then Home Secretary
with seating for an event. Visually it’s also very clear where you are (usually Theresa May.
because there’s a whopping great sign in the background – in this case Gove stunned Cameron a year later by defying him to back
‘Stafford Rangers’.) So when local people see the Leave in the EU referendum campaign, demonstrating a propensity for
pictures on TV, they know Starmer has been in their patch. tactics-over-loyalty politicking that many will forever associate with him.
But the party is also trying to promote the image of Sir He played a central role in the Brexit campaign and a Boris
Keir Starmer as a football-loving, ordinary bloke. Johnson government with Gove in a key job looked likely – until he dramatically
And the reason it’s often lower league clubs? Mainly, the knifed his ally, calling him unfit to be prime minister.
senior Labour source tells me, it’s because the bigger premier league clubs are Instead, Gove declared, he was done with being the power
in cities where Labour are already confident they will behind the throne and was running for the leadership himself.
win.
Their campaign is focused on smaller towns – parliamentary It backfired spectacularly and the eventual winner Theresa May promptly banished him to the backbenches.
seats like Stafford that they need to take off the Conservatives in order to Gove was brought back into government after the 2017 election and launched a second ill-fated tilt at the leadership in 2019.
win a majority. He was seen as a key behind-the-scenes player but his relationship with Johnson ended in tears once more: the outgoing prime minister used one of his last actions in No 10 to sack him for disloyalty.
But the Labour leader will be hoping for better political
fortunes than his footballing hosts today. Stafford Rangers lost their last
game 6-0 and are being relegated.
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