The Gove-Johnson love affair is back on – for a month or two, anyway

Most insiders give it a month, two at the outside, before the divorce lawyers are called in. But for now the on-off-off-off relationship between Michael Gove and Boris Johnson is very much back on.

Never mind that Mikey had such serious reservations about Boris after sharing the Vote Leave love-nest bus during the referendum that he chose to resign as his campaign manager and stand against him in the 2016 Tory leadership race. Never mind, too, that Mikey had so little faith in his ex that he also chose to stand against him again this time round. Even begging him not to withdraw – snarf, snarf – as he had done previously.

In a wedding venue at Kew Gardens, Mikey had come to renew his civil partnership vows. Even if his other half hadn’t bothered to turn up. Not that Mikey cared. He was here to tell the world that his was a love that could no longer be denied.

Gove may have duplicitously dragged the guests along under the false pretence that he was making an important speech about the environment but, having sung an opening celebratory hymn to all plastics being shot on sight, he quickly cut to the chase.

How did he love Boris? Let him count the ways. So clever. So handsome. So loyal. So brave. So fertile. Anyone could have been forgiven for thinking that Mikey was desperate for a job – I’ll do anything! Anything! – in Johnson’s government.

Quite why so many Conservative MPs are so certain that Johnson is the right man to run the country is one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time. Mostly because Boris has never shown the slightest aptitude for any position of responsibility.

A man who can’t even be trusted to do up his trousers or pay his parking tickets, let alone count to four. Or five. Or six. Or protect British citizens in Iran. A fact that Ivan Rogers, the UK’s former permanent representative to the EU, was quick to make plain in his evidence to the foreign affairs select committee.

Tom Tugendhat, the committee chair, had intended this session to be an investigation into the future of the UK’s diplomatic relations with the EU, but it rapidly became clear he had stepped rather outside his remit as there wasn’t going to be any future. At least not one that involved the Foreign Office.

Not that there has even been a history of the Foreign Office being involved with the EU for the last three years. Because the first thing Theresa May did on appointing Johnson as foreign secretary was to sideline him from all the EU negotiations on the grounds that he would make an already tricky situation next to impossible. Possibly one of the few really good decisions she ever made as prime minister. Though sadly for May, she proved more than capable of cocking things up all by herself.

Like many top civil servants, Rogers is not short of self-regard. He never knowingly makes do with a single sentence when several paragraphs fill the time so much better. And he has never yet come across a politician whom he would rate as even half-competent. Rather, he has made it his life’s work to protect the country from its elected idiots.

That said, Rogers does know where the bodies are buried. And there are a lot of them. Starting with David Cameron, who failed to understand how the EU operated, and the Vote Leave campaign, who made a point of never specifying what sort of Brexit they wanted for fear of the leavers falling out among themselves even before the referendum had taken place.

But Rogers reserved a special place in hell for May, who had managed to commit every cardinal sin in the negotiating book by misunderstanding how the EU worked, failing to grasp the Irish problem and pandering to the Eurosceptics in her own party. Yes, he’d tried to tell her where she’d gone wrong. But would she listen? Would she hell.

After an hour of Rogers talking without pausing for breath, the committee looked understandably shellshocked, the sense of existential futility profound.

Was there any chance Boris might be able to do a better job? Don’t be ridiculous. This was Boris. And the time for getting a good deal had long passed. All that remained was damage limitation.

In any case it was no skin off Rogers’ nose as he’d long since been forced out of a job by Brexiters who considered him ideologically impure. And with his connections an Irish passport should be a doddle. So let Johnson screw up. And see how long the latest Boris-Mikey love-in lasted. Revenge was sweet.