THERE’S more than one shape-shifter in the UK Government. Although Boris Johnson wears this dubious title rather well, Michael Gove rivals the Prime Minister when it comes to snake-like shedding of skin and sloughing off of accountability.

In last weekend’s Irish Times, Fintan O’Toole summed it up when he talked about Gove’s tasteless jibe about the Irish famine before the EU referendum back in 2016, insinuating that at least Brexit wouldn’t be as bad as the potato blight that killed one million people.

O’Toole describes this as a classic Gove technique, also employed by Johnson, using what they would claim as “wit” to distract from the lack of substance to their plans or indeed the lack of any actual plans at all. Johnson did the same thing at the Climate Ambition Summit on Saturday when he talked about people in the UK not being “mung bean-munching eco-freaks”, while sharing the virtual stage with heavier weights such as the UN Secretary General, the Pope and President Macron. No-one at all laughed at this public schoolboy humour in the face of environmental catastrophe. Gove and Johnson are just indulging themselves at everyone else’s expense.

When Gove announced last week that a final agreement with the EU to the Government’s law-breaking Internal Market Bill would allow Northern Ireland a bespoke Brexit deal, he had the audacity to remark that now they could: “Enjoy the best of both worlds: access to the European single market ... and at the same time unfettered access to the rest of the UK market.”

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And so here is a pretendy Scotsman making damn sure that Scotland won’t benefit from any kind of similar special relationship with the EU. As another Johnson once remarked the “high road” to England is the “noblest prospect” that some Scotchmen ever do see.

Returning to climate change and the upcoming COP26 summit in Glasgow next year, while Gove plays fast and lose with Brexit, he’s kept his eyes on the prize. So close and yet so far; so many different incarnations in order to get just inches away from the finish line. It is his hope of being PM that propels him through this self-inflicted political quagmire.

Gove is watching from the wings, waiting for his moment to strike. He knows that Johnson is “obsessed” with COP26. It suits BoJo’s fondness for grandiose gestures and imaginary technology yet to be invented. But Gove knows that if Johnson screws up yet again, by botching COP, then this catastrophe on top of a Brexit No Deal/rubbish deal, on top of a global pandemic, then the PM might just get pushed out of the hot seat to make way for a steadier successor.

Here is an example of another hidden power that Gove may possess – not just a shape-shifter but a super-forecaster. We were always made to believe that there was only one true prophet in town, and that was Mr Cummings. But now it’s actually Gove who possesses the power to predict future political opportunities, just quietly, in his Machiavellian way.

Does anyone remember, for example, his tenure as environment minister, when even climate activist George Monbiot praised some of Gove’s measures. Beware of geeks bearing gifts.

Gove’s been laying the groundwork for a major role as climate warrior and protector of nature. How fitting that the next possible PM could be one who had already conned the hearts and minds of those who actually care about sustainability.

Ultimately none of the internal career-climbing, brown-nosing shenanigans that goes on within the Tory Party has anything even remotely to do with real-world concerns.

Gove is always working the angles; it’s like breathing for him, with political raft jumping the oxygen for his power-hungry lungs.

READ MORE: Michael Gove told Scotland will lose out due to bespoke NI Brexit deal

Who could forget the psychodrama of his original great betrayal of Johnson for the Tory leadership bid just days after the Brexit referendum result. Cameron was gone and Johnson was ready to take his place. But Gove had other ideas.

While Johnson looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights, Gove’s grey matter had gone into survival of the fittest mode as he “took back control”. In the end, we got Theresa May and the rest, as they say, is bloody awful recent history.

The moral of this story is that, for Johnson and his gang, it’s always about them. It’s always about very personal opportunity, individual accumulation, subjective interpretation. Gove as friend to all things sustainable is just the chance to get his foot in the door as a future PM; Johnson waxing lyrical about green revolutions is just a diversion from his self-obsessed incompetence on Brexit and Covid.

Giving to Northern Ireland with one hand while robbing Scotland blind with the other is all in a day’s work for these moral-lite chameleons.

In this integrity void, nothing positive can grow or flourish, no public benefit will be experienced, no greater good can come of it. In your guts you should know that they are nuts.