Michael Gove leaves everyone feeling they’ve been NatConned

You might wonder what a cabinet minister is doing at a National Conservatism conference. A group of conspiracy theorists and populist weirdos that already assumes the Conservatives have failed and are fighting for the soul of the party in opposition. That most Tory MPs need to be deselected in favour of candidates with purer Conservative thoughts.

On Monday, Suella Braverman hadn’t given it a second thought. No opportunity to stoke the culture wars should ever be passed up. A chance to meet her tribe, her fanbase. To stake a claim as a leader in waiting.

Michael Gove had clearly had his doubts. It may have seemed like a good idea when he was asked – he’s easily flattered as his self-worth is through the floor these days. But now he found himself on stage at the Emmanuel Centre in London in front of an audience of a couple of hundred people, he wasn’t quite so sure.

Time was when Gove was a player. Someone who made things happen. These days, he’s a lost soul. No real friends anywhere. He just drifts aimlessly around Westminster. A man without real influence, surviving on a reputation for competence that doesn’t bear close examination. Next stop oblivion.

So Mikey No Mates no longer had any skin in the game. There was nothing to be gained by indulging in some blue-on-blue attacks on his colleagues. All he could really do was try to talk his way through his half-hour interview with the Daily Telegraph’s Madeline Grant without saying anything very much of interest. Certainly nothing that could get him into trouble with any of his colleagues. For the first time in his life, Gove was going to be the most moderate person in the room. Imagine that.

To most people’s horror, Gove began by declaring himself to be socially liberal. Cue a sharp intake of breath from an audience that had come to be pampered. To be love-bombed. To be told they were right. It was almost as if he was going out of his way to deliberately troll the Nat Cons. An impression that was heightened when he delicately pointed out that being in power – running a government – was a wee bit more complicated than just yelling mad shit from the sidelines.

The housing and levelling up secretary then calmed down and assumed cruise control. Mainlining Valium into the nervous systems of all concerned. It was all perfectly normal for the archbishop of Canterbury to think Conservative policy immoral. This didn’t go down well. The Nat Cons core belief is that God is a conservative.

It was a sign the party was in robust health that there were so many people fighting like rats in a sack and the government was failing to meet almost all its policy objectives. But he didn’t want the Nat Cons to worry their pretty little heads about anything so mundane as running a country. They could just chill out a bit and play at rightwing politics for their own amusement.

Grant tried to play devil’s advocate to liven things up a bit. But the Govester refused to play ball. Everything was wonderful. The government was wonderful and had performed heroically over the last 13 years, constantly reinventing itself to the delight of a lucky electorate. Rishi Sunak was wonderful. Boris Johnson was wonderful. Braverman was wonderful. Every Tory MP was wonderful. And the Nat Cons were simply adorable too. So sweet with their darling, populist fantasies.

“We Conservatives don’t polarise the world into the woke or unwoke,” he said. A bad misjudgement. Because the Nat Cons live for the culture wars. They’ve no idea how to run an economy – their explanation for Liz Truss wrecking the country is that she didn’t get the chance to wreck it even more – so the only battles they think they can win are the culture wars.

Moving on. Mikey No Mates did have one confession to make. It was really hard to get on the property ladder. No shit. Insight after insight. Pearl after pearl. Only this was the housing secretary as good as admitting that he had failed. However, he chose to blame the migrants. Bloody foreigners. Still, better to build one beautiful house than tens of thousands generic new builds. But no one raised an eyebrow or a complaint. Mainly because they were all dozing off. It had been a long few days being angry about everything.

Asked to name the successes of the last 13 years, the Govester struggled. Universal credit, he offered hopefully. Strangely, he didn’t feel the urge to mention Brexit, despite it being the one legacy that has his fingerprints indelibly all over it. Perhaps it just slipped his mind. Or maybe he feels too much guilt. Though the Nat Cons would have been happy to grant him absolution. They are hot on original sin. Nor did anyone bring up Truss. So polite.

“We will win the next election,” Gove concluded. He didn’t really sound as if he believed it. The Nat Cons shrugged. They don’t care one way or the other. The current bunch of Tories aren’t real Conservatives after all. Bring the whole lot down. They mean it, man. Still, if the Tories did lose there would be more time to read Edmund Burke, Jane Austen and George Eliot. Oh, and Roger Scruton. The mention of Scruton drew Gove’s only round of applause. From those that hadn’t been bored to death.

There had been more traditional Nat Con nonsense earlier in the day. Starting with a speech from American rightwing populist Kevin Roberts that referenced Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán and antisemitic globalist tropes, and finishing with the UK academic Matthew Goodwin who insists he has been cancelled despite being invited to speak on almost every media platform.

For Goodwin, we had reached the end of days. The Tory party was past its sell-by date. We were being governed by a liberal, university-educated elite. Much like Goodwin. Matty also doesn’t seem to have asked himself how this all-powerful elite had let Brexit happen. Maybe they were too busy being all powerful that they took their eye off the ball.

He’s also never asked himself why the media are dominated by rightwing, populist platforms. Still, he went down a storm. And he does take himself very seriously which is all that matters to the Nat Cons. Because they feel this is their time. With that, the oppressed minority of two cabinet ministers, Jacob Rees-Mogg and several lords went off to plan the revolution.