The justice secretary is discovering anew that politics is a contact sport.

Outlining his vision for a new relationship between the UK and the EU, Michael Gove enthused about joining Bosnia, Serbia, Albania and Ukraine in a ‘free-trade zone stretching from Iceland to Turkey’. Colleagues in the Remain camp pounced gleefully on just one of the countries referenced – Albania.

Barely 24 hours after the speech, the lord chancellor was being referred to in Westminster as ‘King Zog’. Obiter fears the name may stick.

 

 

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