Julia Hartley-Brewer skewered Gove this morning as he was asked seven times to specify how many people his new “Buy a House on Benefits” housing policy will help. Given the policy involves allowing people on benefits to put them towards paying a mortgage, the answer will be tiny. Gove failed to answer all seven times, eventually calling it a “silly question”. Not as stupid as the policy…

Guido has had a quick ring round and one Downing Street source – off the record – described it as “a nonsesensical gimmick”, a think-tanker usually sympathetic to the government described the policy as “insane”. The problems with the housing mortgage market will not be solved by just lowering credit worthiness criteria for borrowers, they will be solved by building more houses, something the government under threat of losing seats to cynical LibDems in the places where people want to live, is failing to promote. The problems of low income earners not earning enough are not helped by the government subsidising low paying employers via the welfare system or putting up the taxes of low earners. More big spending by big government is not the solution…

Michael Gove just appeared on the Today Programme to trail the government’s plan to expand Right to Buy, ahead of Boris’s big “reset” speech later today. Aside from all the usual talking points, host Amol Rajan pinned Gove over the fact that these policies were only coming now – 12 years into Conservative rule…

Rajan: “Why have you built so few homes?… You’ve been in power for 12 years.”

[…] Gove: “There are challenges that flow from some of the steps that were taken in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis… maybe some of these questions should have been addressed earlier… In government, no one can say that we’ve been idle over the last two years…”

Maybe not the last two years, what about the whole decade before that?

Michael Gove was a brave man entering a bear pit when he went to meet with Tory peers this afternoon, following an almost week-long row about his suggestion the Upper House moves to Stoke-on-Trent during parliament’s restoration. Fighting it out, Guido hears Gove was on the receiving end of some cold fury from the party’s traditionalist Noble Peers, not least Lord Cormack who compared the Secretary of State’s letter to an estate agent’s brochure. Andrew Lansley questionably complained the only reason the QE2 Conference Centre had been retained in public hands was to allow the Lords to decamp there. Guido’s mole reports Lords Norton, Geddes, King, Taylor and Hayward all raised concerns, though arguably it was Lord Vaizey who went the furthest. Suggesting it should be Gove moving to Stoke on Trent…

There wasn’t total unity among Tory lords, however. Baroness Fookes asked whether a site to which the Lords would decamp has been identified in Stoke and what costings/savings had been determined. The implication of her question was that there was no site and no costings/savings had been identified. Lord Frost said he’s open-minded about relocation. Appropriately this whole showdown took place in Parliament’s Moses Room. Though by the sound of it Michael Gove won’t be leading an exodus of peers out of SW1 and across the Red Wall any time soon…

The Lords are in a huff over what’ll happen to the members of the upper chamber when the builders boot them out for urgent renovations. While most would rather stay close to home and camp in the nearby Queen Elizabeth II centre, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove has other ideas, claiming he “cannot endorse” their plan to “decamp to a temporary home a mere 200 yards from the Palace of Westminster”. Over the weekend it emerged he’s instead recommending they be shipped off to some place further afield – preferably in the North somewhere so he can say he’s levelling up the region. Inevitably the Lords have started chuntering…

One particularly upset Peer, Lord Cormack, tried making the point today that it’s not even within Gove’s gift to make those plans:

“On whose authority did Mr. Gove contact the Lord Speaker… was he speaking for the government? And if so, does he realise this wasn’t a matter for the government… or was this just another freelance exercise by an intellectual flibberty-gibbet?”

Caaalm down…

Michael Gove used his morning media round appearance on BBC Breakfast to deny rumours of an imminent emergency budget in one of the strangest ways possible – using a range of over-excitable accents ranging from a 90s radio DJ to Liverpudlian. Guido’s not saying they were bad…

Trying to focus for a moment on what Michael actually said, he accused journalists of “chasing their own tail” with regards to the rumour:

“We are constantly looking at ideas to ensure that we relieve the pressure on people facing incredibly tough times, but that doesn’t amount to an ’emergency budget’, which is what some people immediately thought it did. 

It is an example of some commentators chasing their own tails and trying to take a statement that is commonsensical, turning into a major – capital letters – Big News Story, and when the Treasury quite rightly say ‘calm down’ people instead of recognising that they’ve overinflated the story in the first place, then say ‘oh this is clearly a split’.”

It’s a fair point. Guido just hopes Michael’s aides ensure he puts less sugar in his morning tea ahead of his next broadcast round…

Sarah Vine has launched an honourable defence of Gove in her column today, after mockery that the Levelling Up Secretary wouldn’t commit to taking in Ukrainian refugees under his own scheme announced on Monday. Writing in the Mail, Vine clarifies:

“…he is no longer living in the family home we jointly own, so it’s not in his gift. He is too honourable to point that out, so I thought I would do it for him.”

While this is fair up to a point, Gove is hardly homeless. He has in fact taken up residence of the Foreign Secretary’s luxury London pad at Carlton House Terrace. Guido presumes that Michael is only using one of the £25 million home’s three bedrooms, leaving oodles of space for a whole Ukrainian family to move in. After IPSA specified last night that MPs can use their taxpayer-funded pads to house refugees, Guido presumes Michael won’t want to be left behind…