Gove slammed Ashcroft as a “comedian” who puts Tories’ electoral strategy “at risk”

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

Political Scrapbook has unearthed a 2000 Times op-ed in which Michael Gove, then a columnist at the newspaper, slams the newly ennobled Lord Ashcroft as a “comdeian” who puts the “enitre Tory electoral strategy at risk”.

Gove wrote:

* “Surely a party determined to make patriotism and tax its salient issues would not have as its paymaster a man, like Michael Ashcroft, who was Ambassador for one foreign country and and a tax exile in another?”

* “Mr Hague certainly has a well-developed sense of humour…You certainly do not emerge strengthened as an opponent of cronyism by expending what credibility you have acting as the paid lobbyist for your own title-hungry Treasurer”.

He also wrote that Ashcroft:

* “Enjoys no check on his arrogance…Why wasn’t the Conservative Party capable of seeing how much trouble reliance on this one man would cause?” “

Kirsty Wark referenced the article on last night’s Newsnight:

Last night, Michael Gove tried to brush his words off, not as 10 years old but as entertainment he was paid to write. But the choicest quotes will be giving him a headache this morning as his party tries to negotiate another self-inflicted wound to its electoral strategy.