MICHAEL Gove last night addressed his wife’s searing account of how the temptations of political life can lay waste to years of marriage – insisting he “just gets on with the job”.
In a devastating attack on shamed cheater Matt Hancock, journalist and self-styled “Westminster wag” Sarah Vine used her weekly newspaper column to describe how the swagger of ministerial life can wreck a relationship.
The Mail on Sunday columnist wrote that MPs get so addicted to the adrenaline rush of power they soon become bored of home life.
But she added: “The problem with the wife who’s been with you for ever is that she knows you’re not the Master of the Universe.”
Her blisteringly honest article left Westminster watchers drop-jawed because of her own 20-year marriage to a high-flying minister.
Grilled on his wife’s remarks today, the Cabinet Office Minister praised his wife’s abilities as a writer but tried to steer away from the line of questioning.
But pressed on her claim that power is an “aphrodisiac”, Mr Gove said: “The thing about anyone who is a commentator is that they will have their own views.
“And secondly, as I say, my wife is a brilliant journalist. All I will say is I think she’s a brilliant journalist and she is the person in our household who is the perceptive one, I’m the one that just gets on with the job.”
Ms Vine, 54, branded Mr Hancock’s lockdown-busting affair with close aide Gina Coladangelo shocking but “entirely predictable”.
The Health Secretary resigned on Saturday following Trending In The News’s bombshell revelations he cheated on his wife and mother of their three kids Martha.
Ms Vine singled out her former friend Samantha Cameron – with whom she spectacularly fell out with during the Brexit wars – for keeping ex-PM David grounded during his time in No10.
She noted how Mr Cameron’s marriage survived unlike his right-hand man George Osborne, who also left his wife Frances for an aide.
Putting the finger on why ministers begin to resent home life, she wrote: “How can anyone be expected to put the bins out when they’ve just got home from a day saving the world?”
Ms Vine added: “It doesn’t take a huge leap of imagination to see how you can go from being happily married to the kind of person who gets caught so unfortunately on CCTV.”
