Michael Gove has admitted to taking cocaine, joining fellow Tory leadership contenders in confessing to drug use.
“I took drugs on several occasions at social events more than 20 years ago,” he told the Daily Mail. “At the time I was a young journalist. It was a mistake. I look back and I think, I wish I hadn’t done that.”
The admission comes as Theresa May spends
the final days of her premiership in Downing Street, with a number of the prime minister’s Conservative colleagues vying to replace her.
Gove, whom the bookmakers have as third in the race behind
Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, insisted his past crimes should not be held against him in the leadership race. “I don’t believe that past mistakes disqualify you,” Gove said.
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The Green party MP Caroline Lucas
tweeted: “Rank hypocrisy of minister admitting to ‘mistakes’ on drug use while backing policies that perpetuate harm. From locking up disproportionate number of young, black men, to treating drug misuse as crime rather than health issue, prohibition fails us all.”
