A Fife MP has said Boris Johnson should consider Michael Gove’s fitness for government after recordings revealed a string of sexist and racist jibes from his time as a student.
Recordings revealed the Independent at three Cambridge Union debates included one in 1987 and two in 1993 where a man identified by the paper as Mr Gove makes a series of comments.
In one tape the Conservative MP can be heard describing Margaret Thatcher’s policies as creating a “new empire” in which “the happy south stamps over the cruel, dirty, toothless face of the northerner”.
Two further tapes were said to have been recorded in 1993 when Michael Gove was working as a journalist.
In the recording, the voice identified as Mr Gove can be heard making jokes about then-student Lucy Frazer, who now serves alongside him in government.
Mr Gove commented on Ms Frazer’s “preference” for fruit flavoured condoms, saying she had done “remarkably well” to come from “the back streets of the slums of Leeds”.
He also described Prince Charles as a “dull, wet, drippy adulterer”.
The recording also feature a 1987 debate on the empire, where Mr Gove apparently said: “It may be moral to keep an empire because the fuzzy-wuzzies can’t look after themselves.”
He added: “Eton took the cream of the colonial system, it took fettered foreigners and it turned them into gentlemen.”
It was reported that sources close to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster did not dispute the authenticity of the recordings.
The Cabinet Office has been approached for comment.
Michael Gove, who was born in Aberdeen, was also alleged to have said in the tapes that gay people “thrive primarily upon short-term relations”.
Responding to the tapes, Liberal Democrat MP Wendy Chamberlain, who represents North East Fife, said Michael Gove should be ashamed.
She said: “Michael Gove should be ashamed that he ever thought these things, let alone said them.
These inappropriate and racist remarks are not befitting of a government minister, not befitting of a journalist, in fact not befitting of anyone.
“The prime minister should consider whether this is the type of person that deserves to be sat around the cabinet table.
“However, given Boris Johnson’s own history of disgraceful remarks, I expect this will be another shameful issue he lets go unchallenged.”