Michael Gove claims his patriotism and principles led him to turn on Boris Johnson and David Cameron

‘I’ve taken some decisions, but always because I have put my country and my principles first’

Michael Gove, a contender for the Conservative leadership, has said that it was love of country and strongly held principles – not low ambition – that drove him to knife his friends Boris Johnson and David Cameron.

“I’ve taken some difficult decisions, but I have always taken those because I have put my country and my principles first,” he said on the BBC1’s Andrew Marr programme.

Since the extraordinary circumstances of his entry into the Tory leadership race, Mr Gove has been denounced by Boris Johnson’s furious sister as a “psychopath” and others have suggested that his apparent treachery made him unfit to be party leader.

Mr Gove had been expected to support his fellow Brexit campaigner in the contest to be prime minister but at the last minute declared he was going to run instead because he did not believe Mr Johnson had the necessary leadership qualities. After his intervention, Mr Johnson unexpectedly pulled out of the contest. Earlier, the Justice Secretary helped bring down his old friend David Cameron by joining the Brexit campaign.

Mr Marr half-jokingly compared with the main character in the drama series House of Cards – a ruthlessly ambitious politician, who becomes becomes US President in the Netflix series, through intrigue and cold-blooded murder. Mr Gove said that he has seen the original BBC version that features a similar character, Francis Urquhart, who becomes the prime minister, but not the American one.

“You are our Frank Underwood, a lot of people are saying this morning – so turn to that camera and say something sinister, and it would be perfect,” Mr Marr challenged him.

The Justice Secretary avoided cracking the obvious joke, which would have been to repeat Frank Underwood’s famous catchphrase: “You might say that: I couldn’t possibly comment.” Instead, he replied: “There are all sorts of people who will say disobliging things about me. I don’t mind that because I would rather people said ‘this is a man who sticks to his principles’ than ‘this is a man who is worried about popularity’.”

One of the people being “disobliging” is the journalist Rachel Johnson, writing in The Mail on Sunday. She blamed the wreckage of her brother’s political career on Mr Gove, his ambitious journalist wife, Sarah Vine, his abrasive adviser Dominic Cummings, and his ally, George Osborne.

She wrote: “However much Gove tried to remind us what a nice, caring guy he is…I’m afraid that he’s acting like a political psychopath run by his wife (Vine), an acknowledged psychopath (Cummings) and a lame duck Chancellor. And this Machiavelli still wants us to want him to be prime minister.”

But Mr Gove repeatedly denied being driven by personal ambition. He protested: “If I had really wanted to be leader out of personal ambition I could have announced my leadership last weekend. I deliberately did not do that because I wanted to put my country first.

“I came to the conclusion reluctantly after throwing my heart and soul for four or five days into trying to get Boris to become the leader of the Conservative Party that he could not do that job.

"Right until the 11th hour I was talking to colleagues and friends seeking to persuade them that Boris could lead this country and could be prime minister, but in the final 24 hours there were actions that were taken, decisions that were ducked.

“Boris had the opportunity to build a team. Boris had the opportunity to lay out a particular vision in the last 24 hours and I felt he did not step up that challenge.”

He also denied that his sudden, unexpected intervention had forced Mr Johnson to drop out of the leadership contest.

He said: “Boris could have chosen to go on if he wished to. The fact that he didn’t, I think is telling.”

He added: “I enjoyed working with Boris during the referendum campaign. I think he has great talents and great abilities, but you need something else to be prime minister – you need to have that grip, that executive authority, that sense of purpose. I had hoped that Boris would show that but in the end it was not there.”