‘It’s like Rorke’s Drift out there!’ - Week #5 of the Conservative Party general election campaign was probably the messiest yet - but at least they were honest about not caring any more

Michael Gove chose violence going into week five. 

Weighing into the evolving story of how more of those linked to the Conservative Party campaign allegedly used insider information to gamble on the date of the general election, Gove would draw comparisons to Partygate, the infamous scandal involving UK officials holding illegal parties during the Covid-19 lockdowns that sparked public outrage and was instrumental in the public beginning to shift its support away from the Conservatives.

Gove had by this point given up caring too much about the election anyway. His name was among many of the Conservative ‘big beasts’ that read the runes and decided to avoid the discomfiture of potentially losing his Surrey Heath seat at the general election by standing aside. 

There was still some value to Gove, however. The princely sum donated to the Conservatives at their Summer Ball was £30,000, which granted the lucky bidder a dinner with Gove alongside Sunak’s own secretary and close friend James Forsyth, former political editor for The Spectator magazine and husband to former Downing Street press secretary Allegra Stratton, herself no stranger to controversy following her role in the aforementioned Partygate scandal. 

Elsewhere at the Summer Ball, others accruing conspicuously large sums included Kemi Badenoch, MP for Saffron Walden in Essex, who gathered £17,000 at auction for a private lunch.