Michael Gove had to try something different to give his campaign a bump with the dust still yet to settle from his torrid weekend and he certainly managed the most energetic campaign launch of all the candidates so far. The line he decided to take this time was going hard on Big B…

Gove stands out among the Tory leadership field for being able to both set out detailed policies and not be boring doing so and there was plenty that will have appealed including his social care insurance and veterans policies. Brexit is still his Achilles heel – on policy at least – and Gove saying that he would be prepared to delay Brexit “however long it takes to get a deal over the line” more or less sinks his chances of winning over Brexiteers in any significant numbers. His lines on Brexit aren’t red…

His decision to launch a range of personal attacks on Boris looks like a calculated deadcat gambit to try to shift the media narrative off his personal peccadillos onto internecine Brexiteer warfare and personality clashes, judging from the number of hits he took from journalists afterwards over it he still hasn’t managed to blow away the issue just yet. Attacking the candidate most people expect to emerge as the eventual winner is not necessarily the best way of getting wavering Tory MPs on board either…