Michael Gove Misses BBC Interview After Getting Stuck In Lift

Government minister Michael Gove missed a prime time BBC interview this morning – after getting stuck in a lift.

Gove, who is the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, was reportedly slated to appear on the Radio 4 Today programme’s 8.10am slot, but failed to show up.

It was left to host Nick Robinson to break the news, revealing in a scene straight out of the BBC satire W1A that Gove had made it into the BBC’s New Broadcasting House, but got stuck on his way to the studio.

‘We were hoping to talk to Michael Gove. You might have been hoping to hear from Michael Gove at this time. He’d very kindly come into the building, so we didn’t have to deal with one of those awkward line failures,’ Robinson explained to listeners.

‘Mr Gove is stuck in the Broadcasting House lift. I wish I could say this is a joke – it is not a joke. It is not very funny for Mr Gove and a security man, who have been stuck there for some time,’ he continued, adding that Gove remained in a ‘cheerful mood’ and had even offered to conduct the interview by phone from within the elevator, with the minister ironically set to discuss building safety.

An image posted by a BBC producer showed the cabinet minister stood inside the see-through glass lift, with the producer confirming that Gove was ‘finally free from the lift behind my desk, where he has been stuck for half an hour’.

Gove has since made it onto the airwaves, where he joked that ‘after half an hour in the lift, you’ve successfully levelled me up’, in reference to the government’s ‘Levelling Up’ agenda.