Michael Gove desperate to appear on Strictly, says ex-wife

Best BBC show contestants ‘all completely rubbish’, says Tory minister’s former partner Sarah Vine

Cabinet minister Michael Gove is “desperate” to take part in Strictly Come Dancing, his ex-wife Sarah Vine has claimed.

The levelling up secretary – once captured raving in an Aberdeen nightclub – is a keen dancer and fan of the BBC programme, according to his former partner.

“My ex-husband is desperate to do Strictly. Well, he would because there’s endless videos of him dancing,” the columnist told GB News.

She added: “I’d love him to do it. One of his special advisers, I won’t say his name, he used to be a ballroom dancing champion himself so maybe he could get a little bit of help from there.”

Asked if she would visit the studio to support him, Ms Vine said: “If he invited me – he might not invite me.”

Suggesting her former husband would be a good novelty act, she said: “The joy of old Strictly was they were all completely rubbish. And people like Ed Balls and Ann Widdecombe, they’d never danced in their lives.”

Ms Vine added: “Now you get these sorts of people who’ve done a bit of showbiz stuff and so they can actually dance.

“I want to see people who really can’t dance, because then the progress is just so much more satisfying.”

Presenter Andrew Pierce said he once danced with Mr Gove to Abba during a party thrown by Ms Vine and Mr Gove and had “massacred” Dancing Queen.

“That was the party where you fell into the fire,” Ms Vine remembered.

The Tory cabinet minister was spotted by stunned partygoers in Aberdeen in August 2021, dancing in the Bohemia nightclub to techno until the small hours of the morning.

According to accounts, the 54-year-old, having recently separated from his wife, was drinking in a local pub until last orders and was urged to move onto the club by fellow drinkers.

Mr Gove and Ms Vine, a Daily Mail columnist, announced their split in July 2021 after 20 years of marriage.

She later has said she wanted to “stop” him from ever becoming prime minister “because I can’t think of anything worse”.