David Gauke

David Michael Gauke (/ɡɔːk/; born 8 October 1971) is a British political commentator, solicitor and former politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for South West Hertfordshire from 2005 to 2019. He served in the Cabinet under Theresa May, including as Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor from 2018 to 2019. First elected as a Conservative, Gauke had the Conservative whip removed on 3 September 2019 and, until the dissolution, sat as an independent politician.

Gauke served in the Cameron Government as Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury from 2010 to 2014 and Financial Secretary to the Treasury from 2014 to 2016. During the formation of the May Government in July 2016, he was appointed to the Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, where he remained until being appointed Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in 2017. Gauke was appointed Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor in January 2018. He resigned on 24 July 2019 following the Conservative Party leadership election.

Quotes

• It is tempting to linger over some of the confusions and contradictions in the various pronouncements at the conference. We need to reduce immigration because immigrants place too great a pressure on public services and housing. But we also need women to give birth to more children. Presumably, these will not be children who will be born in hospitals, attend schools and live in houses.
  We need more British people to work so we need fewer immigrants. But we certainly should not be funding childcare support to help mothers enter the labour market. In fact, we are not that keen on mothers entering the labour market at all.
• The tone is pinched and narrow and disapproving but, above all, rather foreign (to use a phrase that might be understood by its contributors). It feels like an agenda for a different country or a different time. And that, of course, is what it is.
  • "The National Conservatives are a glimpse of the Tories’ grim future", The New Statesman (18 May 2023)
  • Observations on the politics of the National Conservatism Conference of the Edmund Burke Foundation held in London during May 2023.

• First, at the Treasury and subsequently at International Trade and then at the Foreign Office, she became adept at self-promotion. Not that one would pick that up from her account. She rails at the “trivialisation” of politics but was known as much for her Instagram posts as her policy positions; she complains of her time as prime minister about “a growing culture of leaks” but was widely suspected by her colleagues of being the most prolific leaker of cabinet meetings, presumably because she hoped to win favourable press coverage.
  • "What’s the point of Liz Truss?", The New Statesman (19 April 2024)
  • From a review of Ten Years to Save the West by Liz Truss (Biteback).