Michael Gove

The Government is about to introduce a new test for those considering a university career. The central question will be punishingly direct. Do you want to run up a debt of £21,000 in order to go to the best British universities? Some people will, apparently, be put off applying to our elite institutions by the prospect of taking on a debt of this size. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is all to the good.

Gove: I think the people in this country have had enough of experts, with organisations from acronyms, saying—
Interviewer: They've had enough of experts? The people have had enough of experts? What do you mean by that?
Gove: People from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.
Inteviewer: The people of this country have had enough of experts?
Gove: Because these people are the same ones who got consistently wrong what was happening.
Interviewer: This is proper Trump politics this, isn't it?
Gove: No it's actually a faith in the—
Inteviewer: It's Oxbridge Trump.
Gove: It's a faith, Faisal, in the British people to make the right decision.

We are at last experiencing a new empire: an empire where the happy south stamps over the cruel, dirty, toothless face of the northerner.
At last Mrs Thatcher is saying I don't give a fig for what half of the population say because the richer half will keep me in power. This may be amoral, this may be immoral, but it's politics and it's pragmatism.

We have a great future outside the European Union and we should be embracing that

There are lots of other folk, including in the Cabinet who could easily be prime minister, I am not one of them. I could not be prime minister, I am not equipped to be prime minister, I don’t want to be prime minister.

If there are Islamophobes in the Conservative Party - and there are - we should root them out.

We don't want to stay in the EU. We voted very clearly, 17.4 million people sent a clear message that we want to leave the European Union, and that means also leaving the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice

[It is] not enough to believe in Brexit you've also got to be able to deliver it

The creation of national parks almost 70 years ago changed the way we view our precious landscapes - helping us all access and enjoy our natural world. We want to make sure they are not only conserved, but enhanced for the next generation. Are we properly supporting all those who live in, work in, or want to visit these magnificent places? Should we indeed be extending our areas of designated land?

It will not be the case that we will have zero-rate tariffs on food products. There will be protections for sensitive sections of agriculture and food production.

The reality of Christian mission in today’s churches is a story of thousands of quiet kindnesses. In many of our most disadvantaged communities it is the churches that provide warmth, food, friendship and support for individuals who have fallen on the worst of times. The homeless, those in the grip of alcoholism or drug addiction, individuals with undiagnosed mental health problems and those overwhelmed by multiple crises are all helped — in innumerable ways — by Christians. Churches provide debt counselling, marriage guidance, childcare, English language lessons, after-school clubs, food banks, emergency accommodation and, sometimes most importantly of all, someone to listen. The lives of most clergy and the thoughts of most churchgoers are not occupied with agonising over sexual morality but with helping others in practical ways — in proving their commitment to Christ through service to others.

one of the things we can do is continue to ensure that trees are allowed to survive - rather than by being chopped down by a council which is in thrall to its own officers

I think that there are a number of economic factors in play. Some prices may go up. Other prices will come down.

The point that I made in the article is that if any of us lapse sometimes from standards that we uphold, that is human. The thing to do is not necessarily then to say that the standards should be lowered. It should be to reflect on the lapse and to seek to do better in the future.

I'm constitutionally incapable of it. There's a special extra quality you need that is indefinable, and I know I don't have it. There's an equanimity, an impermeability and a courage that you need. There are some things in life you know it's better not to try.