MICHAEL Gove has denied having a cocaine habit, but has admitted he was lucky not to end up in jail.
The Environment Secretary’s use of the Class A drug has dominated this weekend’s coverage of the contest to replace Theresa May as Tory party leader.
Gove was forced to confess to his coke-fuelled past ahead of the publication of a new biography, written by the journalist Owen Bennett. Perhaps worryingly for the Aberdeen-raised Tory, the author has said there are plenty more stories still to come.
According to the book, Gove admitted to using cocaine to his advisers before the Tory Party leadership race in 2016.
Asked if he should have gone to prison, Gove told the Andrew Marr Show: “I was fortunate in that I didn’t, but I do think it was a profound mistake.”
He added: “I deeply regret the mistake that I made. It was a crime, it was a mistake.”
But Gove, who served as Justice Secretary, in charge of England’s criminal justice system, including courts and prisons, was accused of gross hypocrisy.
Possessing cocaine is a criminal offence. Police catching someone with a small amount of the Class A will often give them a caution, which, though not a conviction will stay on their criminal record forever.
But the Misuse of Drugs Act means that a cocaine user can be charged and can, in very rare cases, be sent to jail for seven years.
When he was Education Secretary, Gove brought in a lifetime ban for teachers who used cocaine.
In 1999 – around the time he admits having taken the drug – he wrote an article for The Times criticising “middle class professionals” who took drugs.
According to the Mail on Sunday, Gove hosted a party the night before the column was published in which the Class A drug was allegedly taken by guests.
But speaking on Marr on Sunday morning, Gove denied that this amounted to double standards.
“I think anyone can read the article and make their own minds up,” he said. “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.”
There was confusion over Boris Johnson’s cocaine use.
In an appearance on Have I Got News For You in 2005, he admitted being given the drug but suggested he had not actually taken it, saying: “I think I was once given cocaine but I sneezed and so it did not go up my nose. In fact, I may have been doing icing sugar.”
But when asked about claims he had taken cocaine at university by Marie Claire magazine in 2008, he said he had when he was 19.
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