By now, it’s probably too late to warn you.Try as you might, you can’t possibly un-see what has already been seen. It’s the footage of Michael Gove tearing up a dance floor in Aberdeen at the weekend.
The only comfort we can draw from that hugely distressing fact is that we are all in this together.
If YouGov was to ask the public which politician they would like to see shaking their bits and hips in a club, I suspect (and I do not mean this unkindly) that Michael Gove would languish near the bottom.
That’s if anybody named him at all. This scenario could be a Pointless answer in the making.
I know who’d be my first choice but that is a story for another column and another day…
As is so often the case with Michael Gove, the footage of him dancing looks like something otherworldly creatures would come up with if they were making a low-budget training video on human behaviours.
He’s there – a real, actual earthling, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster no less. But there’s something off about the whole thing.
Some have compared his performance to dad-dancing but that is unfair on dads.
Often what they lack in flexibility and rhythm they make up for in enthusiasm and gimmick moves.
The titbits in the reporting that accompanied the video footage are delicious.
Apparently Gove rocked up alone to a pub 10 minutes before closing.
He was then encouraged by other patrons to head to the club upstairs.
Cheapskate Chancellor
There, he stiffed the bouncer for the £5 entry fee – allegedly – after doing a posh-boy Tory version of “Do you know who I am?’’
Once he had scrounged his way into the club, he enlisted random members of the public to keep him topped up on booze until closing time.
It is a known fact that rich people are always the tightest with money but it’s rare to see it illustrated so perfectly in print.
It’s past midnight and the member of parliament for Surrey Heath is desperate for a Cheeky Vimto
The Conservatives tell the poorest in society to live within their means.
But it’s amazing how quickly that ethos goes out the window when it’s past midnight and the member of parliament for Surrey Heath is desperate for a Cheeky Vimto.
One reveller told the Daily Record: “I heard people saying, ‘he’s a Tory MP’. Others asked ‘who’s Michael Gove’ and were Googling him.’’
Coke and the clap: Michael Gove has form
I’m surprised he wasn’t instantly recognisable to all the Aberdonian clubbers.
Ater all, Michael Gove has given us some of politics’ most memorable moments in recent years.
Take his alien-invasion style of clapping at the 2018 Tory party conference.
The gif has remained popular for far longer than Theresa May, who was on the receiving end of the applause.
Warning: Michael Gove clapping is both confusing and mesmerisinghttps://t.co/zCbtCUMwLd
— Metro (@MetroUK) July 1, 2016
There was also that time during the Tory leadership contest to replace her when he admitted he deeply regretted taking cocaine on “several occasions’’ in the past.
We all make mistakes Michael
When I first saw the video, I got that shameful rush of adrenaline that you feel when politicians make headlines for something ultimately harmless, but nevertheless embarrassing.
But let she who has not made a fool of herself on a dance floor cast the first stone.
It’s been a long time since I was last at a club in the wee hours. But in my late teens/early twenties, I was a regular.
Fair play to Michael Gove, at least he was engaged in what appears to be an entirely wholesome activity: dancing like nobody is watching.
Every line in this Michael Gove story, originally got by the Daily Record, is a work of beauty.
The doorman is claiming he tried to avoid paying the £5 entry fee by boasting he was the “Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster”.https://t.co/oLHX9KmVl1
— Dan Bloom (@danbloom1) August 29, 2021
In my clubbing days, I was always more focused on whoever the current (unknowing) object of my affections was at that time.
For a while I was in love or – let’s be honest – lust, with a man who went to the same club me and my friends were at on a Friday, Saturday (and sometimes Sunday) night.
I would stare at him intently across the crowded dance floor, in what women’s magazines led me to believe was an incredibly sexy and sultry fashion.
This happened for many weekends until my friend gently pointed out that “creepy eyes’’ as she called it, was quickly becoming my signature move and I should desist immediately.
And at least Michael Gove was on his own time
I don’t know if it’s still the case now, but back in the good ‘ole days of the early noughties, an overly sentimental slow song used to precede lights up and closing time.
If you were lucky (and we were often lucky: nobody was afraid of germs) you’d sway to that last song with somebody you fancied.
I hear boys are more suave these days, but back then you knew the guy liked you if he grasped both of your bum cheeks as he inexpertly hauled you around the dance floor’s outer perimeter.
It was done in a similar style to that other Tory MP who was caught out by an embarrassing video recently.
I wonder if Matt Hancock did much clubbing in the noughties…
To his credit, Michael Gove wasn’t shaking his sweaty snake hips during work hours.
And his party might be a shambles but at least his antics have brought us all some light relief.
