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Michael Gove's Biography

 
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Michael Gove was born in Edinburgh on 26 August 1967 and was adopted when he was four months old.

He was brought up in Aberdeen by his father, a fish merchant, and his mother, a lab assistant at Aberdeen University before she worked at Aberdeen School for the Deaf.

After school, he studied English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where he was president of the Oxford Union.

Michael Gove became a journalist, including working for The Times and the BBC.

He was also a Chairman of Policy Exchange, a centre-right think-tank.

In May 2005, Michael Gove was elected the Conservative MP for Surrey Heath. 

In 2006 he wrote the book Celsius 7/7.

Gove was a shadow Minister for Housing & Planning (2005-7) and shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools & Families (2007-2010).

Following the 2010 General Election, he served as Secretary of State for Education and then from July 2014 to May 2015 he was Government Chief Whip and Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury.

On 10 May 2015, Michael Gove was appointed Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice.

He was one of the heads of the successful Brexit campaign that won the Referendum for Britain to leave the European Union.

On 30 June 2016, Michael Gove came forward as a candidate to be leader of the Conservatives and to be Prime Minister, replacing the incumbent David Cameron, who was resigning.

On 7 July 2016, Michael Gove came last of the three remaining candidates: himself, Theresa May, and Andrea Leadsom and so was eliminated from the contest.

After Theresa May became Prime Minister, she fired Mr Gove as Justice Secretary and did not find a place for him in her Cabinet.

However, after the general election in June 2017, Michael Gove was appointed environment secretary in the subsequent cabinet reshuffle.

In June 2019, he once again stood for the leadership of the Conservative Party, after Theresa May had resigned.

At that time, Michael Gove revealed that he had taken cocaine twenty years previously and expressed regret.

Michael Gove came third, narrowly missing out to the battle between the last two. Whilst Boris Johnson was well ahead, Jeremy Hunt had only 2 more votes than Gove.

On 24 July 2019, the new Prime Minister Boris Johnson made Michael Gove Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

In a 2021 reshuffle Gove was made the Secretary of State for levelling up, however on 6 July 2022 he was sacked, having advised Boris Johnson to resign as Prime Minister. Johnson himself did resign shortly afterwards.



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