Michael Gove is far from a villain in expenses-gate

James Forsyth explains why Michael Gove is getting an unfair rap from The Telegraph tonight:

"He is under fire for having flipped his second home designation but he did so because he moved homes. In other words, the property that was his second home genuinely changed. Gove discussed this in an interview with Fraser (he’ll have more on this soon) how he initially tried to live in his constituency full time and then found that simply was not possible with his work and family commitments so moved back to London. He has not sold any properties he brought with taxpayer-supported loans or anything like that so this strikes me as quite different from most of the other cases of flipping."

Fraser Nelson has more.

It's also true that Michael Gove has been the shadow cabinet's biggest supporter of David Cameron taking a hawkish line on transparency.  When other big Tory guns have been urging caution on more transparency it has been Gove who has been banging the table for faster reform.  Many readers might be sceptical tonight but Michael Gove, an opponent of more state funding of political parties, is one of the good guys in all this.

Tim Montgomerie