Tales of excess from Michael Gove's rooftop cocaine hut

20th April 2023

LIKE Studio 54, Michael Gove’s cocaine hut on the roof of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities is legendary for its parties. Civil service insider Tom Logan reminisces.

Getting naked with Kate Moss and Therese Coffey

The Cristal was flowing freely in the hut, as was the Colombian marching powder. Michael made an entrance as usual in his gangsta pimp gear and said: ‘Hey, who needs clothes anyway?’ Before I knew it I was dancing naked to I Feel Love with Kate Moss and environment minister Therese Coffey. It was crazy. And mentally scarring.

We were so high we almost bombed Belgium

I was partying with the Brexit crowd and Michael, off his tits, said: ‘I’m sick of these negotiations. Why don’t we just bomb Brussels?’ And Lord Frost goes ‘Don’t talk shit, you can’t do that’ and Mikey says ‘Yeah I can.’ He gets out his phone and a few minutes later he says: ‘Right, four RAF Tornadoes are on their way to bomb the Council of Ministers.’

As a senior civil servant I was pretty sure we shouldn’t bomb Belgium. Luckily I’d only had a few lines so I was fairly straight and I managed to get the airstrike cancelled. Sure, I can laugh about it now, but at the time I was shitting myself. I’ve got a gold-plated pension to think of.

The time Iggy Pop snorted a bowl of Twiglets

One night Lindsay Lohan was really hitting on me, but I kept getting distracted by a guy trying to smoke a bowl of Twiglets. F**k me, it was Iggy Pop. He thought they were Thai sticks and wouldn’t be convinced they were just nasty office party nibbles, so I left him to it.

I was really getting somewhere with Lindsay, only then Iggy tried to snort the Twiglets and collapsed. Later it turned out one had got lodged dangerously close to his brain. It was left to me to call an ambulance, and by then Lindsay was banging Jacob Rees-Mogg in the toilets. So thanks a f**king lot, Iggy.

Michael challenges Johnny Depp to a drugs competition

Politicians are very competitive. That’s why they’re successful with no actual skills or talent. So when Johnny Depp showed up at the hut, all full of himself after winning his libel case, Michael said ‘I bet I can take more drugs than you’. So they get stuck into the coke, meth, microdots, E, ketamine, shrooms – you name it. It could have turned messy, but luckily they both passed out after a few hours.

The night Nadine Dorries punched out a DJ

A DJ from Heaven was playing Hi-NRG and disco and Michael and me were coming up on our first two Es and loving it, when Nadine Dorries storms past. There was always a bit of tension between Michael and Nadine because of Boris, but it’s the role of the civil service to remain neutral.

I had a soft spot for Nadine though, always completely off her head, even if she had a Newsnight interview in 10 minutes. Anyway, then I see her arguing with the DJ going: ‘What’s this shit? Play some f**king hardcore!’ He refused and she only punched his lights out. ‘Mad Nad’ indeed.

The night Lee Anderson fell off the roof

Michael had invited a bunch of Red Wall MPs for some reason. Not my type, bunch of yobs really, and they were hitting the booze like it was going out of fashion. I was sorting out Trinny Woodall with some showbiz sherbert when I heard a scream. It turned out one of them, Lee Anderson, had fallen off the roof – and it was eight f**king storeys down. Luckily he landed on his head – any other part of his body and it could have been fatal.

Curtains, dining tables, garden furniture: What are your retired parents blowing thousands on?

19th April 2023

HAVE your retired parents suddenly discovered they have money? Here are the unnecessarily expensive home goods they’ll start feeling the need to acquire.

Curtains

Blocking out the weak glow of barely functioning streetlights does not require luxury items, but your parents bought super-expensive curtains anyway. Apart from being an incredibly dull purchase, they justified it because the pattern was ‘lovely’. And that’s what you want from a piece of fabric that’s only on show when you’re asleep.

Dining tables

What better thing to waste money on than wood, the material that literally grows on trees? They weren’t rushing to give you cash when you genuinely needed a bail-out, but apparently when it comes to a table you sit at once a year for Christmas it turns out the sky’s the limit. You are loved less by your parents than a lump of dead tree.

Gym equipment

A state-of-the-art rowing machine is just what two rapidly ageing pensioners with joint problems and an aversion to movement need. They could have got someone’s old exercise bike for a fraction of the price, but that wouldn’t look as nice gathering dust in the spare room.

‘Art’

With too much time on their hands, buying overpriced tat to clutter up their house can now be passed off as ‘collecting’. Before you know it, every room will be dripping with twee watercolours and ugly vases that should be smashed with a hammer. Your mum thinks she’s got an original Henry Moore and your dad thinks he’s Charles Saatchi thanks to a figurine of a pheasant on the mantlepiece.

Garden furniture

There are definitely cheaper ways to fill up the shed, but for your folks only a set of pricey chairs will do. On rare hot days they won’t bother to drag them outside anyway and will just watch TV in the lounge with the doors open. Undeterred, they’ve now got plans for a patio involving builders and gas heaters, just in case there’s any of your inheritance left.