BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

Hello and welcome to political thinking.

This week saw the first King's speech in 70 years, the first, and who knows maybe the last, under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, after 13 years of Conservative

rule.

At the centre of power in those 13 years, both in pushing original policies and allegedly sinister plotting behind the

scenes is today's guest on political thinking, a conversation with rather than a newsy

interrogation of someone who shapes

are thinking about what shape theirs. He, if you've not guessed yet, is Michael Gove.

He's found some pretty surprising allies during his ministerial career.

He is praised now as housing secretary by housing campaigners,

whereas Tory supporting developers complain about what he's doing.

He was praised by environmentalists when he was environment secretary and by justice

reformers when he was in charge of England's prisons. He is though often condemned

by conservatives as a sort of plotting genius.

Michael Gove, welcome back to political thinking.

Thanks, Nick.

When we last spoke, it's back in 2019, just days after you declared that you wanted

to be leader of the Conservative Party.

You spoke movingly about your adoptive parents and the influence that they had had on you.

And you said that you wanted to prove to them that they'd made the right

decision. What did you mean and have you been able to prove to them? What I meant was a real sense of

gratitude and also obligation. So my parents took a gamble in a risk taking me into their lives.

...