Gove’s white lines are a red line for a majority of the electorate
And now with Michael Gove admitting to cocaine use when he was younger, we found that 56% of Brits think this should disqualify someone from top office https://t.co/997tPlJLel
— YouGov (@YouGov) June 7, 2019
Has Gove blown his chance of becoming Prime Minister?
I’m still reeling from the news that broke late on Friday night that Michael Gove admitted doing cocaine in his previous career as a journalist. Team Gove would also be reeling when reading that polling from YouGov showing that 56% of voters think former cocaine users should be barred from senior jobs like MPs (let alone Prime Minister.)
But will the voters get all sniffy about a potential Prime Minister doing cocaine? I’d suggest this is a further example of polling doesn’t accurately capture the actualité of the intention of the voters, let us look at the evidence.
Quite recently we’ve had a Prime Minister who refused to deny using cocaine in his life prior to become a politician and George Osborne, his Chancellor and long term ally, was regularly plagued with allegations of using cocaine prior to becoming a Member of Parliament, yet that didn’t stop them reaching the top of British politics.
This is one of those regular reminders that opinion polls shouldn’t be taken as gospel but need putting into context, the British public are much more forgiving and less moralistic than the polling implies as Messrs Cameron and Osborne will testify.